Only two days left!
A Paisley Councillor has made a last minute plea to use your old £1 coins before you can no longer use them on Monday.
A new £1 coin was introduced on 28th March 2017 to make it more secure and more difficult to counterfeit. The old £1 coin was introduced about 30 years ago but it is estimated that one in thirty coins in circulation is a counterfeit, which led to plans for the new coin. The new coin is twelve-sided with extra security features and although only slightly larger than the current £1 coin, it is both lighter and thinner.
Photo: Cllr Mags MacLaren holding both of the pound coins
Although businesses will no longer accept the old pound coin after 15th October, it will still be possible to change them at banks and post offices.
SNP Councillor Mags MacLaren, Paisley Northwest said: “From midnight on Sunday 15th October shops and businesses will no longer accept the old £1 coins as they go out of circulation.
“The deadline for using the old £1 coin in shops seems to have come around very quickly and with very little publicity from the UK Government. Apparently, there are still 500 million coins in circulation so it seems that efforts to inform the public of this change have not gone well.
“This change has already resulted in Renfrewshire Council having to put aside £100,000 to deal with the changeover, including changing coin operated machines such as parking ticket machines. That was money that should have been used for local services but the UK Government provided no compensation for this.
“With the deadline approaching so soon I would encourage everyone to check their wallets, purses and piggy banks to make sure they use or change their old pound coins as soon as possible.”