Pub’s fight to get pay machine

11:21am Thursday 28th September 2006

AN AWARD-winning North Dorset pub is fighting to have a special machine installed, which it believes would make life easier for people living in isolated villages nearby.

PayPoint machines are part of a payment collection network, installed in 18,000 outlets, including garages, across the UK, which allow customers to pay their water and electricity bills, top up their mobile telephone credit and even book a holiday.

Antony and Barbara Marshall, tenants of the True Lovers Knot, in Tarrant Keynston, believe the machine could provide a lifeline for elderly villagers, but they have already had three applications rejected.

The father-of-one, whose pub has just finished runner up in the Calor Rural Pub in the Community 2006 competition, said PayPoint did not think the machine would get enough business in his pub, but he has refused to admit defeat.

"We're not going to give up. We're going to have one of those machines," he said.

"There are a lot of villages in the area without shops and there are many elderly people who struggle to get to Blandford or Wimborne because there are no buses."

The couple, who transformed the ailing waterhole into the heart of the community since they took over two-and-half-years ago, has now won the backing of North Dorset District Council, which said it would consider supporting their next application.

NDDC's regeneration manager Hilary Ritchie, said: "If we were approached it is definitely something we might consider supporting. It's an excellent idea. We are trying wherever possible to combine activities and utilities in villages in central areas like a pub, which are well established."

A spokesman for the district council added that it looked into installing a machine at its offices in Blandford where people could pay their council tax, but decided against it.

But he added that the council anticipates that within the next 12 months a system will be in place that will allow residents to use the machines to pay their council tax.

A spokesman for PayPoint said: "PayPoint cannot comment on an individual application. However we do take every application seriously and have strict criteria in place, which applicants have to meet before they can become a PayPoint agent."

He added that the criteria includes location of other PayPoint terminals in the area, opening hours, customer accessibility, accreditation and trading status and the commercial viability of the terminals the company installs.