Cash Machine Campaign
Given the choice between using a cash machine that doesn’t charge you and one that does, you would use the one that’s free. Some machines however will charge you up to £2 per transaction – the usual charge is £1.50. The logical thing to do is just use the free machines. In the city centre or the main shopping areas this is not a problem. However, not everyone can get such easy access to their money.
The Treasury set up a working group to look at this problem. It reported at the end of last year and found a number of communities where residents lacked convenient access to a free cash machine. Discussions are under way with the industry to try to put this right.
Following publication of this report I checked to find out the position in east Newcastle and Wallsend. Some of the constituency is well served by free machines, and bits of it don’t have any access to free machines at all – instead, local people have to pay to get access to their own money. The smaller the amount they withdraw, the higher proportion they pay as a charge. This is particularly hard on people with low incomes.
There is another problem that is particular to riverside communities like ours: the river limits travel to neighbouring communities and thus to nearby free cash machines. People end up paying £1.50 to use a cash machine because the cost of travel to a free one is the same, if not more.
All of this strikes me as being so unfair that together with other local residents I am launching a campaign to get things changed. The idea is to collect signatures showing that there is real support for free cash machines for every community and to open up negotiations with the providers to get everyone free access to their own money.
I hope that you can support my campaign. If you’re willing to add your name to the petition please contact me.