County ready for new £1 roll out

The new coin, to launch in March, is aimed at cracking down on the number of fake coins in circulation.

The new pound coin is set to be the most difficult to forge ever, has 12 sides, micro-lettering, made out of two metals, and is lighter than the existing coin.

Between March and September next year both new and old pound coins should be accepted everywhere from corner shops to parking machines.

But after that, the old pound coins will no longer be either given in change or accepted by shops.

The change has prompted concern will cause problems for coin-operated machines such as vending machines, games and supermarket trolleys.

But businesses in the region say they have been preparing and although it will be time consuming, will not cause a major issue.

A spokesperson for Red Rose Leisure, based in Fleetwood Street, Preston, said they would be sending out engineers to all their fruit machines, juke boxes and arcade games across the North West.

She said: “We’ve just had to do it for the machines that take £5 notes, and now we’ll have to do it again for all the machines.

“It’s quite a big job really, and there’s no compensation for it, you just have to do it.

“There is the side of it that you won’t get the fakes, but to be honest, we don’t get many of them anyway. They tend to be lighter and the machines recognise them.”

Babs Murphy, chief executive of the North & Western Lancashire Chamber of Commerce said: “Businesses were informed of the introduction of the new pound coin some months ago. The majority of businesses have sensibly prepared well in advance for the changes coming in. Clearly not all businesses will have planned for the introduction of the new pound coins but it isn’t a really difficult and costly exercise to implement.”c

A Royal Mint spokesman said: “The Royal Mint and HM Treasury have been consulting with industry, including organisations in the cash services industry, coin handling equipment manufacturers and representative organisations and individual companies in sectors with high cash transactions e.g. retail, transport and leisure industries.

“The Royal Mint has made samples of the new £1 coin available to manufacturers and operators of coin handling equipment for the testing, development and implementation of equipment upgrades.”