Over the years this newspaper has reported numerous instances when services and facilities have been threatened in our rural communities.

Post offices, shops, pubs, public toilets, bus services - even some schools - have all faced the axe. In some cases, communities have rallied round to take them over and keep them running. But in many cases they have been lost, probably forever, as times change and funding grows tighter.

Banks are the latest service coming under increasing threat in some outlying towns and villages. Across South Lakeland, six banks are due to shut their doors in the next three months. Barclays at Ambleside and Nat West at Bowness and Shap were already known about. Last week Nat West announced plans to close its Milnthorpe and Sedbergh branches and just two days later Barclays said it was also pulling out of Sedbergh - leaving just the Post Office offering banking services to the 3,000 residents plus an ATM at the Spar on the outskirts of town.

The news has sparked anger in Sedbergh with around 70 people holding a protest outside Barclays. Retailers fear they will lose business and there are also concerns those without computers and internet banking will have to travel ten miles to Kendal to branches there.

The banks say there is not enough footfall to justify remaining open and, as businesses, they have a right to make decisions based on profitability. But Nat West is largely publicly-owned and some might say it should take more of a community view while this is still the case.

Times are changing and more and more people are banking online. But not everyone has a PC or wants to take the internet route.

MP Tim Farron is urging banks to rethink their stance and for chief executives to visit rural communities to see the impact closure decisions are having on communities.

In the meantime, people should protest if they want to and perhaps some branches will be reprieved.

However, sadly it is looking increasingly likely that further rural areas are set to lose their local bank branch.