Former Sheffield bank in historic building set to be transformed after closing two years ago

An empty former bank building on a Sheffield shopping street looks set to be transformed more than two years after its closure.
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Plans are being drawn up to re-open the former Royal Bank of Scotland building in Broomhill, with the site set to be converted into a restaurant.

The Victorian building on Whitham Road had been used as a bank for decades, and had been a branch of Williams and Glyn's Bank prior to RBS.

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The former RBS building at Broomhill looks set to become a restaurantThe former RBS building at Broomhill looks set to become a restaurant
The former RBS building at Broomhill looks set to become a restaurant
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But the company closed the branch in Broomhill in November 2018, and the windows on the building are currently boarded up.

The building’s owner today confirmed there were plans to re-open the building as a Turkish Restaurant.

Fraser Ludlam said: “The plan is for it to re-open as a Turkish grill.”

He said he was pleased that the building was looking set to be occupied again.

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"I’ve always felt it’s a nice building from around the 1850s, but it’s been empty since 2019. The coronavirus pandemic has slowed any progress on bringing it back into use though.

“No one wants to see empty buildings, and the hope is that it will look a lot better.”

Mr Ludlam has already done work on the structure of the building to make it more suitable for uses away from its previous function as a bank, having installed in a window in the area previously occupied by the banch’s automatic cash dispenser machine.

Until a few years ago, all the major banks had branches in Broomhill – but they have all now closed, the most recent closure being the HSBC branch, which closed in 2020 and is still empty.

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When they closed the branch in 2018, RBS blamed moves towards online banking, stating one in five of their customers now bank completely online.

More branch closures have happened this year, with HSBC closing its Darnall branch earlier this year, saying the number of customers using branches had fallen by a third in the past five years

But campaigners opposing bank closures say shutting banks leads to long journeys for those unable to use online banking and a loss of trade for small businesses locally.

Over 1,400 people signed a petition opposing the closure of Natwest branches at Stocksbridge, in Sheffield, and at Penistone, in 2018, claiming it would have a 'devastating' impact.