Retail NI Meet PSNI On ATM Robberies
With over a dozen ATM robberies and attacks on Retail NI members since Christmas, a Retail NI delegation will be meeting senior Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) Officers today, Wednesday 29 March.
Speaking ahead of the meeting Retail NI Chief Executive Glyn Roberts said: “These ATM robberies are attacks on local independent retailers who provide a valuable community service.
“We would urge all businesses who have ATMs to be vigilant and ask members of the public with any information on the recent robberies to contact the PSNI.
“There is now a perfect storm of problems around rural ATMs. In addition to the robberies, because the Assembly is down, many of our rural members will this week lose rate relief on their ATMs.
” This will cost tens of thousands on top of their already expensive rate bills.
“With so many bank branch closures, our members provide an invaluable service to many communities to access cash with their ATMs.
“Unless we see a crackdown on the robberies and a restoration of the ATM Rate Relief, many rural areas of Northern Ireland could see dozens more ATMs closing.
“This will put further pressure on people on benefits and pensioners who use cash to budget and rely on ATMs to access cash in many rural areas will be severely limited.”
Glyn Roberts also noted that two important Rates Relief Schemes, which require a technical vote in the Assembly, are due to fold this week.
The Back in Business Rates Relief Scheme which gives new start independent retailers 50% discount for the first two years of trading and the Rural ATM Rate Relief Scheme will no longer operate on 1st April because of no Assembly.
