Plympton-Wyoming Mayor Lonny Napper says there is no chance the historic TD Canada Trust will stay open in Wyoming.

Earlier this month, customers in Wyoming received a letter saying the local branch would be closing.

Napper says the town was caught off guard by the move saying the bank did not contact the municipality to tell them the closure was coming. He adds as Wyoming hopes to revitalize the main street, this is a “slap in the face.”

So Napper met with some of the bank executives recently to see if there was any hope the branch – which has been on the main street for over 100 years – might stay open past the July 14th closing date. The short answer was no.

“The final decision was made long before it came to us,” says Napper. “There was no in-between road, the decision was made… it was very callous.”

Napper says the manager he spoke to said the branch simply wasn’t busy enough.

“They didn’t have the walk-in traffic they needed for that branch and it’s so close to Petrolia, they can handle the business there,” he says. The mayor explained how developers had plans for nearly 100 new homes in Wyoming, but that didn’t make a difference in the decision.

Napper hoped to get a commitment to at least retain the ATM machine for people to use.

The answer to that was also no.

“They said they’d done the numbers and it is not feasible for us to do it.”

The bank plans to hold a meeting in Wyoming March 29 to explain to customers how their business will be transferred to Petrolia.

But Napper says he will approach his council about the possibility of moving the town’s business to the local credit union which remains in Wyoming.

“I’m certainly not supporting moving with them,” says Napper.

He’s hoping to meet with the staff at Southwest Credit Union to discuss whether they would be able to handle the town’s accounts and if they can, he’s hoping council will pass a resolution to move the business there.