Company in high street 'transfer'

Kent Reliance says its high street branches are not profitable

Building society bosses have said plans to move their branches into offices shared with other companies should not lead to job losses.

Kent Reliance has said its high street branches are no longer viable and it wants to move them into the premises of other firms such as estate agents.

There were fears the move by the society, based in Chatham, could lead to redundancies.

But management and union leaders have both said it should not.

'Not profitable'

Kent Reliance, which employs 140 people, has branches in many of the county's towns.

Management told the BBC they were considering transferring them to an agency network because they are not profitable and most customers did not use them.

They said if they were not transferred, some of them would have to close.

It will effectively mean Kent Reliance having a desk in the offices of other companies, where customers can still carry out transactions.

Staff have had to be offered voluntary redundancy, but chief executive Mike Lazenby said this was a formality necessary under business law and he hoped nobody would want to take redundancy.

Mr Lazenby said: "What we will do is find some Kent-based businesses to operate the high street branches.

"We are hoping that all our staff transfer across."

Dai Davies of the finance union Unifi said the union was adamant there would not be allowed to be any job losses.

But he said: "It's good news if the alternative is that the branches will close and the building society will collapse, but we're not sure that is the case."