A Southwold independent business owner has hit out at the state of the town's cash points after finding herself turning away customers who cannot take out money.

Michaela Denny, who runs Wow Vintage Southwold alongside her business partner Tina Crisp, says the lack of reliable cash machines is hurting businesses.

The coastal town is heavily reliant on income from tourists, with Ms Denny claiming the problem is at its worse on bank holiday weekends.

Ms Denny said: 'It is a frequent situation that the machines run out of cash. They are working on and off but that doesn't happen every day and they are often broken.

'Today (Wednesday, May 23) the Barclay's isn't working and the Co-op isn't working and I have had two customers come in who have been unable to pay for things they wanted to purchase.

'We have to make so much money at a busy time because it is so dead. We are open all the time just to make the money we need to stay open.'

She added: 'I couldn't take a £50 sale because the lady couldn't get money out of the cash machine. That is a one-off sale but it shouldn't be an issue because there should be cash points available.

'It is not going to get better, it is going to get worse and it shouldn't be the case in this day and age.'

Ms Denny called on Southwold Town Council to find a solution or risk the town's economy suffering. She said: 'It is really hard. The solution is to find somewhere and have a couple of cash points put in.

'We pay rates and we have a town council, the town wants to be prosperous and someone in the town needs to make decisions.

'There may come a point where I need to investigate and put one in my shop but that is not the way around the problem.'

A spokesman from Southwold Town Council said the issue would be discussed at the next town council meeting.

A spokesman at Cardtronics, who operate the Co-op cashpoint, said: 'We can confirm that the ATM in question is currently working as it should, but our team of engineers is keeping a very close eye on the machine in case there are any issues that arise.'

A spokesman from Barclays said they were not aware of any reliability issues with their cash machine at Southwold.

He said: 'There has only been one recent fault that we are aware of which was in the middle of May. The only other time that the machine would be unavailable is when it is being refilled.'