More than 6,000 high street bank branches have closed over the past 10 years, with dozens of constituencies projected to be without any branches at all by the end of 2025. To support local communities affected by these closures, the UK’s high-street banks joined forces in 2019 to a create Cash Access UK, a not-for-profit that provides ‘shared banking hubs’ for basic banking services such as withdrawals, deposits and face-to-face support. Currently, there are nearly 80 permanent operational banking hubs across the UK and more than 100 in the pipeline for 2025 alone.
Since 2023, Integral and JLL have worked with Cash Access UK on the acquisition and fit out of these hubs, with Integral providing facilities management services across the portfolio of sites. Integral’s Projects team completed these multi-stage developments. Led by Vince Davies, Projects divisional director, and Sophie Ellis, account director at JLL, the team has designed, procured, installed, and commissioned a full refit of unoccupied high-street locations.
Cash Access UK’s Banking Hubs offer spaces on the high street for customers of 10 major banks and building societies, allowing them to access services throughout the working week. The Post Office operates over-the-counter services, while ‘Community Banker’ services are available for discussion and support of more complex issues.
In November 2024, the combined Integral and JLL Banking Hubs team won a JLL EMEA award in the OneJLL category for its work with Cash Access UK, recognising the collective approach to collaboration and delivery involving multiple JLL workstreams.
Commenting on the project’s success, Davies said: “Bank branch closures have made it very difficult for families and local business owners to access crucial services across the UK. Our team has worked tirelessly to deliver this demanding programme, overcoming many challenges along the way. We are immensely proud of both the achievements of our Banking Hubs team over the past two years in support of this fantastic initiative and our ability to demonstrate the power of combining the expertise that exists across JLL. We are excited to help Cash Access UK reach even more communities in the UK in 2025 and beyond.”
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