A high street building society branch which opened 52 years ago will close at the end of this week. The Cumberland Building Society has announced its branch in Fishergate, Preston, will close on Friday, March 7.

The company has said the building is badly in need of maintenance, and the branch will also be given a facelift during the month-long closure. It is due to re-open on Monday, April 7.

James Cookson, the Cumberland’s cluster manager responsible for Preston, said: “We’re committed to branches as part of our ‘Kinder banking’ purpose, which for our Preston branch means taking the proper time and care to carry out important repairs and ensure we can be here for our customers for years to come. We’re celebrating our 175th birthday in 2025 and Preston was The Cumberland’s first branch, opening in 1973.

"We’re very proud of our long history serving people in the city so when we realised we needed to shut the branch for essential building works we wanted to take the opportunity to also refresh some aspects of the inside of the branch to improve the overall experience for our customers. Our Preston colleagues will be working in our Lancaster branch during this temporary closure so people will see the same friendly faces there for a few weeks and all calls to the Preston branch will be automatically transferred to them."