MONMOUTHSHIRE County Council is to adapt its car park pay-and-display machines to take the new £1 coin due to be introduced later this month, ahead of a project to replace the 20 year old machines in all its car parks

A spokesman for the authority said that although new machine validators - the mechanism through which coin are inserted - have been ordered but it’s unlikely they will be fitted before the introduction of the new coinage at the end of this month.

Notices will be displayed on the machines notifying users until the machines are able to accept the new one pound coin.

“After 20 years use we’re replacing all our machines this year and they will be able to accept the new and current pound coins.

“They’ll be in place and operational prior to the phasing out of the current coinage,” said an MCC spokesman.

“We’re anxious to provide validators that can cope with the current and new coins as current £1 coins will be withdrawn on October 15 and we don’t know at what rate they’ll be phased out.

“There is a likelihood that customers will lack sufficient amounts of current coinage if appropriate validators are not made available, leading to difficulty in paying for parking.

“ The cost of these validators is equivalent to less than two days’ income. We also hope to recoup some of our expenditure by selling the redundant validators,” he added.

Meanwhile Powys County Council has warned anyone parking in its car parks to either have a current coin or alternative cash as it begins a phased installation of new machines.

Powys County Council plans to replace over 60 ticket machines over the coming months with new versions, which will be able accept the new £1 coin.

The authority has assured residents that the new machines will be installed before the old coin is phased out

Councillor John Brunt, Cabinet Member for Highways, said, “We took the decision not to upgrade the current machines so they could accept the new £1 coin because some of the machines are over 20 years old and may have not been able to be upgraded.

“We are now waiting for delivery of the new machines but we will not have them in time to be installed before the end of the month.

 “We will be phasing the installation of the new ticket machines over the coming month but we want to warn motorists that the current machines will not accept the new £1 coin. 

“Please ensure you have either the current £1 coin or the alternative coinage when you plan to park in one of our pay and display car parks.

“We apologise for any inconvenience this may cause.”

New anti-counterfeit measures

The new coin has a number of features that make it much more difficult to counterfeit including:

• A 12-sided design – its distinctive shape makes it instantly recognisable, even by touch.

• Bimetallic content – it is made of two metals. The outer ring is gold coloured (nickel-brass) and the inner ring is silver coloured (nickel-plated alloy).

• A latent image – it has an image like a hologram that changes from a ‘£’ symbol to the number ’1’ when the coin is seen from different angles.

• Micro-lettering – it has very small lettering on the lower inside rim on both sides of the coin. One pound on the obverse “heads” side and the year of production on the reverse “tails” side, for example 2016 or 2017.

• Milled edges – it has grooves on alternate sides.

• A hidden high security feature – a high security feature is built into the coin to protect it from counterfeiting in the future.