Profit Before Tax of £0.9m was, as expected, down on 2019 due to the Leek’s investment in digital and branch improvements and was also impacted by margin compression as base rate reduced and by increased mortgage provisions.

Mortgage arrears were low at 0.20%, the same level as 2019 as loan book quality remained strong.

In a year that was dominated in so many ways by the global pandemic, the Leek’s chief executive, Andrew Healy expressed satisfaction with the Society’s performance, thanking members for their loyalty and employees for their exceptional response to the pandemic.

He said: “I’m extremely proud that the Society not only navigated safely through an incredibly challenging year but that we continued our journey of progress in terms of modernisation and strengthening our financial and operational platform for the future.

“The extent to which our staff individually and collectively responded to the pandemic, changed working practices and reached out to support members was quite magnificent. Indeed it has been heartwarming to receive so many wonderful tributes from members regarding our employees during the year.

“We’re very grateful to our members for their ongoing loyalty and our message is that our Society has emerged even stronger from this unprecedented year.”