Access to cashpoints down 35% in Crawley since 2018

It is said that when a Persian Sultan asked his wise men to express a statement which was true in all situations, after deliberation they came up with: ‘this too shall pass’.

Things change, it’s inevitable, and the general direction of travel suggests that the days of cash are numbered. I don’t feel particularly strongly about this, a Government can change the value of cash or remove its value entirely easily enough, and the difficulty of tracing is principally of benefit to organised crime rather than the general public.

That being said, there remains a large enough portion of the community who for one reason or another cannot easily adapt to card-based payments. So, although it is hard to justify the big costs which are attached to maintaining cash-based systems, particularly given the declining user base, we do have to consider how to avoid excluding those who still rely upon cash.

While one side of this is the growing number of shops and services who do not accept cash, the other is being able to access cash in the first place. On this, statistics recently published by the House of Commons Library have highlighted the scale of the change.

From 2018 to 2024, the number of ATMs in Crawley has fallen by 58, from 211 to 137, a reduction of over a third (35.1%).

Interestingly this reduction was greater amongst pay-to-use ATMs than free-to-use ATMs, with 39.3% and 25.7%, respectively. While the different types of locations where each tends to be based may contribute to this, ultimately it highlights that the level of use of ATMs is dropping to the point where it’s no longer economical to use them, even when you levy a charge.

So, I guess it’s the same message as ever when it comes to losing a service, that if it is something which does matter to you then you need to use it or else you are likely to lose it.