Virgin Money will shut its Brighton branch amid plans to axe almost a third of its sites across the country.

The high street banking business said it will shut 39 local banks due to changing customer demand, which has seen fewer people go into banks in favour of online services.

Around 255 workers are facing potential redundancy.

The company said the sites affected have seen the number of customer transactions fall by an average of 43 per cent since the pandemic hit in March 2020.

Sarah Wilkinson, chief operating officer at Virgin Money, said: “The decision to close a store is never taken lightly.

“But as our customers continue to change the way they want to bank with us, by conducting fewer transactions in-store and adopting the convenience of digital banking, we must respond to that evolving demand.

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“For our colleagues, we will pursue all options to retain as many as possible within alternative roles, and have had great success previously with store colleagues moving to other customer operations roles, as their skills are highly transferable.”