Fleet Hargate campaigner who won award for labelling bankers ‘bunch of crooks’ wants public to join her campaign to keep Barclays branches open

A campaigner who won an award for labelling bankers a ‘bunch of crooks’ is preparing to take on Barclays once again - over their plans to close branches in and around the county.

Joan Woolard is calling on residents to make their voices heard, writing en masse to the bank about how they will be personally affected. arguing that the greater the numbers to greater the impact.

Barclays will close sites in Lincolnshire this spring, with the Grantham branch shutting on Wednesday (April 17) and Spalding and Boston taking their final deposits on May 10.

The branch in Tritton Road, Lincoln, closed last week (April 12) and branches in Stamford, Oakham and Oundle shut last year.

“The city slickers have no idea about the countryside and think they can just walk into a bank around the corner,” said Mrs Woolard, who lives in Fleet Hargate.

“There an awful lot of older people living in this area and they’re closing Lincoln, Leicester, Boston, Grantham - places you don’t think they would close.

“The only ones that are going to be left are Peterborough and King’s Lynn for people who live in Spalding.

“This will cause a great amount of inconvenience to a lot of people who don’t drive, don’t use computers and don’t want to use computers.

“They’re closing the countryside off. The people who live here tend to be people who are older and can’t always travel long distances to go to a bank.”

In 2013 Mrs Woolard hit national headlines when, as a shareholder, she attended the Barclays AGM - delivering an impassioned speech where she called bigwigs ‘greedy bastards’ and a ‘bunch of crooks’.

Her stance saw her receive an award from the Oldie magazine.

“Instead of sitting down and taking this closure like the British always do, just sitting there and letting things happen to us, it’s time people start expressing themselves,” added Mrs Woolard, who says she may well attend this year’s Barclays AGM in Glasgow.

“I’d just love to be that rude to them again.”

But first, she is calling on fellow residents to write to the bank.

“The idea is to give Barclays a bit of aggro, but if they get thousands of letters saying how it’ll affect people they might actually think,” Mrs Woolard continued.

“We’ve been dismissed as if we don’t count.

“Everybody should write to the freepost address. If its an anonymous letter they wont hear back, if they put their name an address in there they should write back.

“We can cause a big irritation if enough people write.”

Mrs Woolard is encouraging others to write to: Nigel Higgins, Barclays Bank PLC, Freepost, RSCB-YGKC-KUJL, London, E14 5HP.

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