There is set to be only one bank left in Bungay as the Norwich and Peterborough (N&P) Building Society name is to disappear from high streets.

Yorkshire Building Society has announced proposals to make changes to its branch network.

They aim to close 20 Yorkshire Building Society branches in May and 28 Norwich and Peterborough branches including the one on Market Place in Bungay, from September.

All N&P current accounts will be closed leaving customers to find alternatives.

Simon Thompson, president of the Bungay Events and Business Association said the move has happened a “generation” too soon.

He said: “It is pretty devastating as that just leaves the town with Lloyds as the only bank and that is only open three days a week.

“It has almost happened a generation too soon. Changes in banking are inevitable and it will probably be the case eventually that everything is done online.

“But there is still a whole generation out there, including myself, who like do their banking in-branch.

“The older generations they don’t know how to bank online. The move has happened 10, maybe 20 years too soon.”

A company spokesman said that 10 employees across Suffolk branches will go into a period of consultation as a result of the proposals and could be at risk of redundancy over the next 18 months.

They will look to minimise redundancies by redeploying as many of those employees into different roles across the group.

A statement from Yorkshire Building Society said: “The driving forces behind the proposed branch closures are shifts in market conditions and an increasing desire among customers to transact digitally rather than in the high street branches. We therefore no longer believe it is the right commercial position for us to continue to maintain these 48 branches across the N&P and Yorkshire network.”

They plan to close all its N&P current accounts to existing customers by August 31 and withdraw the brand from the high street over the next year.

N&P will contact each customer individually to outline what the proposals mean and tell them what they need to do.