The building society has blamed the shifting trend towards digital financial channels, particularly during the Covid-19 pandemic, for the closures.

But it is also comes as the Nottingham announced it would be delivering an estate agency and lettings service under the Belvoir franchise.

With the vast majority of the building society’s estate agency and lettings activity transferring over to the Belvoir Group, its own estate agency and letting operation will close by the end of August.

This will mean closures of six branches – three of which were combined building society and estate agencies. The proposed locations for these closures are Enderby, Syston, Western Park, Market Harborough, Chatteris and Wisbech.

Review of branch network

On top of this, Nottingham said it had ‘reviewed’ its branch network and was proposing to take its network from 60 to 48 through the merger of eight branches which had ‘partner branches’ in close proximity.

Wollaton Park, Firth Park, Carlton Hill, Groby, Netherfield, Sherwood, Ruddington and Harpenden are among those affected.

But The Nottingham will also be closing its Huntingdon branch completely as there was no other site with which to merge it.

The branch mergers will take place in the fourth quarter and the Society said it would be working closely with its members and team members during this period to support them with the transition.

Behaviour change following pandemic

David Marlow, chief executive officer at The Nottingham, said: “Like many other businesses, as a consequence of the pandemic we have seen consumer behaviour changing significantly with members increasingly looking to manage their finances through digital channels, which has become essential for some during the pandemic.

“We are in a very different place to where we were a few years ago and post-pandemic we don’t anticipate that every member will revert back to using branches as they did before.

“In addition to this, we know that younger customers favour a digital solution.

“To stay relevant and grow our membership we must adapt and change the way we deliver our purpose of helping our members save for, plan and protect their financial futures, whilst reflecting how our members live and what they expect from us now and for years ahead.

“We remain absolutely committed to our branch network and we genuinely believe that branches continue to have a key role on the high street to support our members – that is why we continue to have a significantly larger branch network for a building society of our size, even after these changes. We will be investing in improvements in the newly merged branches, as well as implementing new working practices, such as new opening hours, to improve the member experience”.

“In total the proposed changes will affect around 120 roles and we have spoken personally to team members affected.

“Whilst we will seek to offer redeployment opportunities from across the society and choice to impacted team members wherever we can it is inevitable that there will not be roles for everyone impacted and are therefore offering job support packages where people do leave the business.”