Shoppers at Tesco in Carlton are in agreement with a petition that wants to stop the roll out of self serve card only tills in supermarkets. The petition, which has more than 160,000 signatures, says these types of tills are not accessible for many including the elderly.
The woman who started the campaign, Pat McCarthy, said: "These new tills are not accessible for people who don't have credit cards and can only use cash or those with little confidence to use these self-service card-only tills - myself included.
"People such as carers, older people, disabled people with mobility problems or lifting problems have to queue waiting for more than 30 minutes." She claims that Tesco is bringing in new self-service and sort-it-out-yourself card only till machines.
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Shoppers at the Carlton Tesco store were in agreement, with Pat with one calling the self serve tills a "nuisance". A 73-year-old woman from Carlton, who asked not to be named, said: "I just never use them, it's no good for me or people like me. I only use cash.
"When we do a big shop early in the morning there's nobody on the human tills and we can't go through with that amount of stuff on the self serving tills. We have to ask someone to open the tills."
Her sister, a 77-year-old woman from Carlton who didn't want to be named, said: "I do not know what I am doing [when using self service tills] half the time." Graham Fyfe, 73, from Carlton added: "There is usually queues so that is a waste of time. People pay by cash and I usually get in the wrong queue, they have got more card than cash ones. I am not really bothered by human contact but they are easier to use."
Gillian Atherley, 80, from the area said: "I agree with the petition. I think they are a nuisance, we pay enough for our food without serving ourselves. There is a lot of older people living in this area and this is a shop where they come in.
"I wonder if it is a bit to small to do that [roll out more self service]. I do not use the self service. Here, most of the staff know you. They are very helpful and they get to know us and we do them, nothing is too much trouble."
Sue O'Hare, 77, from Carlton uses the self serve checkouts in Tesco. She said: "We always use them because we find them handy but I do feel for a lot for older people because now a days if you haven't got internet or any one to help, they struggle".
Regarding the potential roll out of self serve card only tills, her husband Kieron, 73, said: "It is a problem to be looked at, it needs a lot of research into the workings of it before they include them in the store."
Tesco say they offer a choice between staff operated tills and self-service checkouts in their stores and that they offer a wide choice of payment options including cash, card and contactless. A Tesco spokesperson said: “Our colleagues and the friendly service they provide are absolutely vital to our stores and will always be on hand to help our customers, whether they are checking out at one of our colleague-operated or self-service checkouts. We first introduced self-service checkouts nearly 20 years ago to give our customers a choice and our stores have both types of checkout.”
