100th free ATM lands at home of Chinook

CASH machine network Link has installed the 100th free-to-use ATM at RAF Odiham in Hampshire as part of a scheme designed to give communities access to cash.

RAF Odiham, home to 2,000 personnel and their families, is a front-line support helicopter base – and home to the Chinook.

Yet it lost its only free-to-use cash machine just before lockdown in March last year, meaning personnel had to travel at least three miles to be able to withdraw cash to spend locally. A new ATM on the base has now been installed by Sainsbury’s Bank.

Launched in 2019, Link’s ‘community requests scheme’ permits individuals to ask Link to assess their community’s case for a free-to-use cash machine.

If accepted, Link will then draw on the £10million of annual funding it has secured from the banking industry to install one.

Apart from RAF Odiham, Link has paved the way for free-to-use cash machines to be installed at military camps in Lulworth Cove (Dorset), Kinloss Barracks (Moray) and Catterick Garrison (North Yorkshire).

On Friday, John Howells, Link chief executive, said: ‘We will continue to visit locations right across the UK to install ATMs where they are needed.’

Cash machines introduced under this scheme have had a transformative impact on communities.

Anthony Lavelle, a councillor on Liverpool City Council, says a free-to-use ATM installed in Croxteth a year ago has had a ‘positive impact’ on the local community.

‘Croxteth is a cash-dependent community,’ he says. ‘No one should have to pay £2 every time they want to withdraw cash from an ATM.

‘My view is that no cash machine should charge users to access their own cash.’

Details of Link’s community requests scheme can be found at link.co.uk/consumers/community-request-scheme

example, opening a new bank account (business or personal) or applying for a loan. Two pilot banking hubs are being tested, in Rochford, Essex, and Cambuslang near Glasgow.

Sources close to Ceeney indicate that if a deal is struck in the coming weeks, the new rules could come into effect by next spring. It would mean that no branch or ATM could then be shut without it being approved by Link. Supporting legislation would then follow, putting an obligation on all the banks to ensure customers have access to cash.

It is understood that Ceeney believes that legislation is essential – without it, there would be a danger that any voluntary commitment made by the banks on access to cash could unwind in the future.

It is believed that Ceeney is also keen for Link to be allowed to consider community requests for a banking hub. Link already operates such a scheme for cash machines (see left).

To date it has resulted in 100 freeto-use ATMs going into places such as Armed Forces camps, hospitals and inner city areas where residents previously had no choice but to pay a fee if they wanted to withdraw cash from an ATM.

Derek French believes such a request scheme is an imperative