BARCLAYS has promised no redundancies among staff and improved service for customers despite announcing the closure of six Woolwich branches in Suffolk and north Essex.

BARCLAYS has promised no redundancies among staff and improved service for customers despite announcing the closure of six Woolwich branches in Suffolk and north Essex.

The Woolwich branches in High Street, Newmarket, Upper Brook Street, Ipswich, New Market, Beccles, London Road North, Lowestoft, Ipswich Street, Stowmarket, and Culver Street West, Colchester, are due to close on, or after, June 24.

Customers' accounts will in each case be switched to a nearby branch of Barclays, with all Woolwich staff being redeployed.

Barclays, which acquired the former building society in 2000, announced last June that it planned to phase out the Woolwich name from its branch network during 2007 although it plans to retain the Woolwich identity as its mortgage brand.

The Woolwich branches being closed are all within 300 metres of an existing Barclays branch. Woolwich sites further away from a Barclays branch will remain open and be rebranded as Barclays, with all of the group's customers being able to use all its branches in future.

Irene East, head of community relations, at Barclays, said: “This is good news for our Woolwich customers as they will have access to a wider range of services which will be available to them at more branches throughout the UK.

“Their branch will also be better staffed as their colleagues in the Woolwich branch will also move to Barclays. This means that customers will be served by the same familiar faces.”

Nationally, a total of about 200 branches are being closed as part of the reorganisation, together with three call centres - at Clacton, Essex, Bexleyheath, Kent, and Dudley, West Midlands - where some redundancies are expected.