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Kit PetersNATWEST: Llanelli and Port Talbot branches to close in September
NatWest is to close its branches in Llanelli and Port Talbot in September, stripping two more banks from high streets that have already lost a string of household names.
The Port Talbot branch will shut on 8 September, with Llanelli following the next day on 9 September.
They are among nine closures announced by NatWest Group on Friday across Scotland, England and Wales — and the only two in Wales, both falling squarely within the Swansea Bay News patch.
Where customers will have to go
For Llanelli customers, the nearest remaining NatWest branch will be in Swansea city centre, on Oxford Street — a 12.57-mile trip, according to the bank’s own closure guide. The next closest is Carmarthen, at 17.77 miles.
Port Talbot customers face the same Swansea branch as their nearest option, 10.10 miles away, followed by Bridgend at 15.57 miles.
Customers are being directed to nearby Post Offices for everyday cash banking — in Llanelli, the branches on Ann Street, Church Street and at Llanelli Docks, and in Port Talbot, the branches on Station Road, Taibach and Morrison Road.
The bank says it will hold a face-to-face event in each branch before closure and run a temporary community pop-up nearby for up to 12 weeks afterwards, staffed by a local colleague but offering no cash services.
NatWest Bank in Port Talbot (Image: Google Maps)Why the bank says it is closing them
NatWest points to a sharp fall in counter use to justify the closures. Personal counter transactions at the Llanelli branch dropped by 66% between January 2020 and January 2026, with Port Talbot down 53% over the same period.
The bank says 220 personal customers and 108 business customers used the Llanelli branch at least 12 times in the year to January 2026. In Port Talbot, the figures were 245 personal and 84 business customers.
It also says 77% of personal customers at both branches were already using its app or online banking over the same year.
Solange Chamberlain, the bank’s chief executive of retail banking, framed the announcement as a turning point rather than a retreat.
“This is an important moment for our customers and the communities we serve,” she said.
She said the bank was investing to give customers “a seamless mix of ways to bank with us, including over the phone, digitally, or via our free to use ATM network,” while still supporting those who prefer to be served in person.
Chamberlain added that NatWest understood the impact the changes would have, saying the bank would “engage personally with all those affected by today’s closure announcement.”
The latest blow to Llanelli town centre
For Llanelli, the loss lands on a town centre that has been shedding banks for some time. Lloyds shut its Stepney Street branch last year, leaving the Halifax on Cowell Street as the only Lloyds Banking Group outpost in the town — and that brand is itself being wound down nationally.
Its shops have been thinning out too, with Llanelli among the south-west Wales towns where Shoe Zone is weighing further store closures. Hospitality has taken heavy blows, with the much-loved Sandpiper pub caught up in Whitbread’s national cull and two well-known restaurants closing on the same day earlier this year.
The town is also bracing for the loss of two of its most prominent structures, with the council moving to demolish both the indoor market and the Murray Street multi-storey car park over safety concerns.
Empty units have brought their own problems, with police last year uncovering a cannabis farm inside a disused town-centre shop.
The town centre’s troubles have also sharpened a long-running debate over the drug and alcohol support unit, which some councillors want moved out to Trostre — a proposal others argue would simply shift the problem rather than solve it.
Signs of a fightback
It is not all retreat. Llanelli was recently handed a £20m regeneration lifeline aimed at its most deprived communities, while artists have set out a vision for a new museum and creative quarter in the heart of the town.
A steel town under strain
In Port Talbot, the closure adds to a far heavier blow. The town is still absorbing the loss of thousands of steel jobs as Tata Steel presses ahead with its £1.25bn transformation of the works towards greener production.
The shift followed the closure of the town’s blast furnaces, ending more than a century of traditional steelmaking and reshaping the local economy that the high street depends on.
The town has also seen what becomes of a bank once the shutters come down, with a Victorian former bank standing empty since Barclays left in 2021 now lined up for conversion into 13 homes.
No more closures until 2029, says NatWest
The latest closures come despite NatWest using the same announcement to pledge no further branch closures across its NatWest, Royal Bank of Scotland and Ulster Bank brands until at least 2029.
The group says it will invest £50 million in its remaining network over 2026 and 2027, modernising branches and expanding its mobile service, and will ask the cash network LINK to carry out an independent access-to-cash assessment for each closing branch.
Once the latest closures are complete, NatWest Group will be left with 336 branches across the UK — a far cry from the high streets it, and its rivals, once anchored.
Related stories from Swansea Bay News
HALIFAX: After 173 years, one of Britain’s most famous bank names is being killed off
What the end of the Halifax brand means for branches in Swansea, Neath and Llanelli.
LLANELLI: Town faces twin loss as council moves to demolish market and multi-storey car park
Two of the town centre’s most prominent structures are lined up for demolition over safety concerns.
PORT TALBOT: Tata Steel sets out demands for next Welsh Government
Thousands of steelworkers live with the consequences of the company’s £1.25bn transformation.
LLANELLI: Town handed £20m lifeline as decade-long regeneration drive begins
A major regeneration push targets the town’s most deprived communities.
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