A district's last bank will close today, leaving campaigners who gathered more than 1,000 signatures against plans disheartened.

The closure of the bank leaves the village and entire Arun district without a NatWest.

Fiona Bates, who set up the petition, told The Argus: "We are really saddened to have not been listened to and that our protest did not change anything."

In May, a group of protesters stood outside the NatWest bank in Churchill Parade, Rustington, near Littlehampton holding pages of signatures and a banner which said: "Campaign to save Rustington NatWest".

At the protest, Ms Bates was supported by Councillor Alison Cooper, Rustington Parish and District Councillor and Councillor Jamie Bennett, the chairman of Rustington Parish Council.

They were also supported by people representing Flowers of Rustington, Oxfam and the greengrocer's Barry Wadsworth. 

The penultimate NatWest branch in the Arun district, which was in Bognor, closed in September.

Now there is only one bank, a Santander, left in the village.

A spokeswoman for Arun District Council previously said: “We understand that this is a commercial decision made by a corporate body and does not take account of local conditions or community needs. The council was not consulted on this matter and has no way of influencing this decision or preventing the closure from going ahead.”

A NatWest spokeswoman said: “Our customers are using digital banking more than ever before – over 80 per cent of our active current account holders now use our digital services and over 97 per cent of retail accounts with us are now opened online.

“Like any business, we strive to meet our customers’ changing needs and expectations and we’ve been responding to the industry-wide shift towards digital services by investing to broaden what customers can do themselves and to offer them greater personalisation.

“While we are increasingly engaging our customers digitally, our branch network remains important to us.

“We are also significantly investing in refreshing our network – we are investing around £35 million in our network across the UK, from 2023-24, as well as continuing to invest in shared solutions like the Post Office and banking hubs.”