The new pound coin will enter circulation next month.

The 12-sided £1 coin – dubbed “the most secure of its kind in the world” – will come into circulation on March 28.

The new coin is designed to combat counterfeiters who have around 45 million counterfeit £1 coins currently in circulation.

New security features include a hologram-like image that changes from a £ symbol to the number one when the coin is seen from different angles. Businesses have been urged to prepare for its introduction.

Cash-handling firms and those that operate vending machines have been directed to a website - thenewpoundcoin.com - to help guide them through the transition as part of a campaign before the Royal Mint and the Government take the circular 30-year-old pound coin out of circulation.

You have until October 15 to spend any old £1 coins.

Upgrades to machines that accept the pound coin are expected to cost millions.

While car park machines at car parks in West Dorset, Weymouth and Portland, North Dorset and Purbeck will not need to be replaced in preparation for the new coin, they will need a software recalibration – at a cost of £110 per machine for all councils except Purbeck, for which it will cost £95 per machine.

West Dorset District Council has 72 car park machines and Weymouth and Portland Borough Council currently has 60, although 43 are due to be replaced before the introduction of the coin and will not be affected.

A spokesman for Dorset County Council, which looks after on-street parking, said it too would need to update the software on its machines, but that it would be difficult to estimate a cost due to maintenance work being carried out on machines at the same time.