Plympton-Wyoming Mayor Lonny Napper is vowing council will do everything it can to make TD Canada Trust change its mind.

The bank which has been on the main street in Wyoming for decades sent letters to its clients this week saying it is closing the branch down. That leaves the credit union as the lone bank.

Napper started getting calls from angry and confused residents.

“What I’m hearing from a lot of the seniors is it is so easy to get in and out of that bank – it is so accessible,” he says adding others “don’t understand why it is closing because it always seems busy.”

Napper says losing a financial institution would be a blow to the village. “I don’t know where it is going to stop; we lost two schools in this community and now the bank.”

It will also have an effect on the town, he says. “One of the big reasons we moved the town office here (when Plympton and Wyoming amalgamated) was because the bank was here” making it easier for staff to do business without a lot of driving.

If the branch closes, Wyoming staff would have to travel to Petrolia for business.

Napper says he’s done some research and found since 2015, TD Canada Trust has been pulling out of smaller communities. “Some people are left with nothing and they have to go 40 miles to the next town.”

Napper has asked bank officials for a meeting to hear their reasons for the closure and to convince them the Wyoming branch should remain open.

And he plans to stress the branch is accessible where the Petrolia branch is not as easy to get into for people with mobility issues.

“This is a big blow to a small municipality,” says Napper. “We’re going to give it a fight and see what we can come up with.

“We’ll do whatever it takes.”