Tesco: We’ll still accept old £1 coins after the deadline

Tesco is among a growing number of retailers pledging to let shoppers use the old £1 coin after sunday’s official deadline.

Days before the Royal Mint’s cut-off, there are still 500million old coins in circulation.

Thousands of parking and vending machines will not be ready for the deadline, while an increasing number of businesses have pledged to ignore sunday’s cut-off.

Tesco said it will accept the round £1 for at least an extra week. A spokesman said: ‘We’re aware of the deadline and have been updating our systems ready for this. of course, we want to help customers, so we will accept old pound coins at the tills and selfservice machines.’

The Federation of small Businesses said the change was too soon after March’s introduction of the 12-sided replacement and there were not enough new coins in circulation for a smooth switch.

Poundland will take old £1 coins in more than 800 stores until the end of the month. The Royal Mint admits it is powerless to do anything about firms that refuse to keep to the deadline. Traders that accept old coins will be able to deposit them in their bank as normal, but it will be illegal to hand them out in change after sunday.

engineers has been dispatched to modify machines across the country in a process that will cost more than £100million – five times the figure touted by the Royal Mint. The cost of adapting to the thinner, lighter coins could be passed on to consumers on everything from fizzy drinks in vending machines to parking fees and public transport fares.

The British Parking Association said the cost of replacing or converting 80,000 machines will be as much as £50million – and some will not be ready for the deadline.

Drivers in Hammersmith and Fulham, West London, cannot use the new coins for parking in some places because of a delay in the arrival of the council’s new machines. And passengers on easyJet were told they could not use the old coins for drinks or snacks on flights within ten days of the cut-off. The Automatic Vending Association said upgrades for 450,000 machines would cost about £32million. Its boss Jonathan Hart said the change ‘touches every aspect of modern life from parking machines to funfairs’. Rail firms have had to convert or replace 2,500 ticket machines. some operators, such as Govia, which runs southern, Great Northern, Gatwick express and Thameslink, will only just meet the deadline. Transport for London has had to modify or replace about 1,000 machines at Tube stations. commuters at Banbury station, oxfordshire, have been unable to use new pound coins at self-service machines. Passenger Ryan Perry said: ‘It’s shambolic as people still rely on cash.’

BT has had to convert more than 45,000 pay phones to accept the new coins and supermarkets have been hit with a bill to convert tens of thousands of shopping trolleys.

And lockers at gyms, sports centres and swimming pools have also had to be modified.

Mike cherry, of the Federation of small Businesses, which represents 170,000 firms, said continuing to take the old coins would ‘provide a useful community service, allowing customers a few weeks to get rid of the final few pound coins in circulation’.

The Royal Mint said 1.2billion of the 1.7billion coins had been returned, and a firm cut-off date was brought in because businesses ‘told us they wanted certainty’. After sunday, the round £1 coin can still be deposited at most High street banks, which will have their own deadline – likely to be in about six months.