Former Aberfeldy Bank to Become Flats; Residents Hope They, Unlike the Bank, Will Be Open After 3.30pm
Building that closed in 2018 'relieved to finally have someone living in it who isn't a man in a suit asking about your overdraft'.
The Square, Aberfeldy, where a former bank is preparing for its new life as somewhere people actually go. Photo: Richard Sutcliffe, “The Square, Aberfeldy”, via Wikimedia Commons (geograph.org.uk), CC BY-SA 2.0
ABERFELDY — A former bank on Aberfeldy’s town square, empty since its branch closed in 2018, will be converted into two flats after councillors unanimously upheld an appeal, ending eight years in which the B-listed building’s only customers were pigeons.
“It’s a lovely result,” said a neighbouring shopkeeper. “For years it just sat there, like a bank does, being closed. Now people will live in it. They’ll have the lights on. They might even be in after half three, which is more than the bank ever managed.”
The conversion will create a one-bedroom and a two-bedroom flat. Future residents have been told they may find original features, including a counter, a pen on a chain and a small, persistent sense that someone is about to tell them the system is down.
Locals have already begun suggesting improvements. “They should keep the night safe,” said one. “Just as a letterbox. Imagine posting your Christmas cards into a 1970s bank vault. That’s heritage.”
Others wondered whether the old ATM spot would remain. “It’s been ‘temporarily out of service’ since 2018,” said one pensioner. “In Aberfeldy that’s practically a listed feature itself.”
The Local Review Body’s decision was hailed as a sensible use of an empty building. At press time, the town was reported to be “quietly hopeful” about its next target: a former bank in every other Perthshire town, all of which are also, coincidentally, closed.
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