Press Releases

Conservative Councillor for Dalgety Bay, Dave Dempsey is deeply disappointed that the application to have a Bank Hub in the town has been turned down yet again.

Councillor Dempsey said “Dalgety Bay, one of Fife’s largest communities outside the big three of Kirkcaldy, Dunfermline and Glenrothes, has been without a bank or post office for years. While a lot of folk are happy with phone or online banking, there’s a still a huge demand and need for face to face interaction. I can understand that individual banks may find branches uneconomic but a Bank Hub, which different banks can use on different days of the week, offers the perfect solution.

“I first heard about this in 2021 and, with the support of Dalgety Bay & Hillend Community Council, started to find out more. The first application went in in July 2022 but was turned down as ‘Dalgety Bay’s Post Office is a temporary closure’. Technically, the closure is still ‘temporary’, years later.

“A year on, with still no bank or Post Office, I tried again, with the same result.

“The following year, another attempt, this time under an improved process that produced a detailed analysis rather than a one-line reply. When that arrived, again with a ‘failed’ tag, there were clear anomalies, not least a claim that the bank branch at Bothwell Street, Dunfermline could meet part of the need, despite that branch closing the following month. This time, there was an appeal process, so I invoked that. Unfortunately, that hasn’t changed the outcome.

“A big factor can be summed up by a section of the appeal decision that reads

‘It seems that Dalgety Bay can’t have face to face banking because it has too many ATM cash machines. It’s difficult to follow that logic but there doesn’t seem to be any way round it. We’ll just have to hope that the very recent suggestion of a possible Post office comes to fruition”