Poorest face a 30-minute walk for free cash machine

SLG · Poorest face a 30-minute walk for free cash machine

Poorest face a 30-minute walk for free cash machine

PEOPLE in one of Edinburgh's poorest communities are having to walk half an hour to find a cash machine which does not charge them to access their own money.

Campaigners from Pilton Citizens' Advice Bureau say there is not a single free cash dispenser in the Muirhouse and Drylaw area.

And anyone on basic Income Support who uses one of the paid-for cash machines risks losing as much as eight per cent of their weekly income in the charges.

Now Edinburgh West Liberal Democrat MSP Margaret Smith is calling for banks to ensure consumers have access to at least one free cash machine in every community. And she wants the Scottish Executive to hold urgent talks with the banks to tackle the problems created by the lack of free cash machines.

Fiona Neilson, co-ordinator of Pilton CAB, said anyone in the area looking for a free cash machine had to go either to Morrison's supermarket on Ferry Road or the Royal Bank of Scotland in Davidson's Mains.

"That's a half-hour walk for many people," she said. "There are other machines around here, but they all charge anything up to £1.75 per transaction. If someone is on standard Income Support benefit of around £57 a week and they withdraw their money in three lots, that means they are losing eight per cent of their money in bank charges.

"The fees may not seem that large in themselves, but if you were earning £30,000 a year and having to pay eight per cent of your income to access your cash, you would not be very happy about it."

Ms Neilson also claimed many young mums were having to use the local Somerfield supermarket in Muirhouse as a bank. "They are buying a bag of crisps and getting £40 cashback and by 10am there's hardly any cash left in the tills."

But others, who have a basic bank account rather than a current account, do not have the option of cashback. Ms Neilson said: "The whole point of the Government doing away with giros and pension books was to promote social inclusion, but it has had exactly the opposite effect and is creating financial exclusion."

Ms Smith, who has tabled a motion in the Scottish Parliament on the issue, said poorer areas where banks had closed their local branches were now being denied access to free cash machines.

"It is appalling that they seem to be targeting places where people can ill afford to be spending huge sums on these charges," she said.

A spokesman for Link, which operates Britain's cash machine network,

said a Treasury working party was looking at the issue and options being discussed included the banks subsidising cash machines in poorer areas and council buildings being used as new locations for machines.

The Clydesdale Bank said its research showed a free cash machine would not be viable in Muirhouse.

RBS said it had more free cash machines in deprived areas than in affluent ones but had no plans for Muirhouse at the moment.

Both banks said customers were able to use local post offices to withdraw money.

http://edinburghnews.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=986532006

Aventinian

Didn't the Department of Health used to have adverts on television recommending a daily thirty minute walk to combat heart disease and such other great evils? A rather roundabout way of achieving it, I'll agree, but all the same - a thirty minute walk isn't going to kill anyone and I imagine the community has a Post Office.

Almost everybody has some form of debit or credit card now anyway. Personal experience would seem to suggest that the only people who use paying ATMs are drunks and business travellers.

azzuri

pogofish