Santander gives Bootle massive vote of confidence as it celebrates 50 years of Banking on the former Girobank Bootle site

Santander October 19 2018

Yesterday the Santander Bank held celebrations at its Bootle site to commemorate 50 years to the day since the site was opened by the Labour Prime Minister Harold Wilson as the headquarters of National Girobank. After 30 years in public ownership Girobank was sold to the Alliance & Leicester Bank, who in turn were bought by Santander 10 years later and the site is now home to 2500 staff, the overwhelming majority of whom are CWU members.

At a reception in which the Chair of Santander, Shriti Vadera, announced that the Bank was to invest £75 million in completely rebuilding the site to make it a state of the art environmentally friendly facility which would incorporate a public park and community facilities she said:
“I’m delighted that we are celebrating 50 years in Bootle with this long term commitment to our people and the area. Bootle has been a significant part of Santander’s story and we see it as a crucial part of its future.”

At a joint meeting between Santander and the CWU shortly before the announcement a quick tally revealed over 300 years of employment on site by local officials, including 45 years employment by the Branch Chair of Northern & National Financial Services Branch and 30 years by the Secretary of Bootle Financial Services Branch. The announcement was warmly welcomed by the assembled CWU reps who were invited to contribute ideas for ensuring the design fulfilled expectations not just of current workers, but of the wider community.

CWU national assistant secretary John East welcomed the announcement, saying:

“This announcement is testimony to the quality of the staff working in Bootle and represents a fantastic commitment for the foreseeable future turning Bootle into the contact centre and operations hub for Santander UK”