Workmen arrived in Sheerness Broadway during the Free Friday Music event to unload scaffolding to close the town's branch of Barclays Bank.

Money was also taken out of the vaults and the cashpoint machines were boarded up.

Posters on the wooden door say: "Your Sheerness branch is now closed."

Customers are told they can do business online or switch to the Sittingbourne or Chatham branches.

Cash can be withdrawn or paid in through any Post Office. It's closure was announced in May.

HSBC pulled out of the town in 2015. Its premises are now used by the Jo' Li martial arts centre run by husband and wife team Andy and Maxine Carter.

The town is still served by NatWest, TSB (part of Lloyds), Halifax and Nationwide.

A spokesman for Barclays said only 167 customers had been using the branch.

He said: “The number of counter transactions has gone down in the two years to March 2020 and additionally 84% of our branch customers also use other ways to do their banking such as online and by telephone.

“Since 2015 customers using other ways to do their banking has increased by 15% and in the past 12 months, 25% of this branch’s customers have been using nearby branches instead of the one in the town.”

Phil Crowder, chairman of the Sheerness Town Team, said: “This is a real blow to the town. I acknowledge many people are now using the internet but there are still a lot of people, like my own mother, who don’t do internet banking and prefer to speak a staff member face to face.

“They are also large premises. It may take a while to find an alternative use for them.”