A group of local pensioners in Swindon have been left angered by their local cash machine being broken for over three weeks.
The ATM in question is located outside the Premier store coupled with MBROS in Cricklade Road and has not had notes stocked for almost a month.
Although contactless is becoming the country’s preferred way of spending these days, especially after the recent Covid pandemic, many people still like to use cash.
Several elderly residents in Gorse Hill rely on the machine to take their money out with no other viable machine for quite some distance.
Jeannette Harbour is one of those affected and she told the Adver of the issues facing her and many of her friends and neighbours due to the faulty ATM.
“It is very inconvenient as a pensioner as this is the closest cashpoint and I prefer to use cash when I can,” she said.
“We don’t like keeping cash in houses and there are no banks nearby to withdraw money from.”
The 74-year-old has lived in Gorse Hill for around 22 years and has noticed that many others are annoyed by the broken machine.
“I’m not the only one as there are a lot of people moaning about it where I live,” she said.
“I have seen people queuing up at the cash point for ages before realising.”
Paul Curtis also lives nearby and relies on the machine for money but he too has been left feeling disappointed with the issue.
“I try to use it everyday but with it not having any money you have got to go all the way to Tesco on Ocotal Way,” he said.
“We used to have several but they’ve closed such as the old Co-operative one.”
Mickey Mapstone is another resident whose life is being complicated by the absence of currency in the Gorse Hill ATM.
“I live near a lot of elderly people and it took one older lady 45 minutes to get here and when she did, there was of course no money in the machine,” he said.
“It’s not fair because they all come here to use that every day and there is no cash available.”
Although it is house in MBROS, the machine is managed by UK company NoteMachine.
Commenting on the issue, a spokesperson for NoteMachine said: “We are aware of technical problems at the Cricklade Road ATM and our engineers are working hard to address the issue.
“We’re confident the ATM will be up and running in the next few days.”
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