Read the Government’s response to test-centres - the e-petition

We received a petition asking:

“We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to stop the closures of the Driving Test Centres.”

Details of Petition:

“The environment impact of closing the expected 66 driving test centre’s is going to be monumental… Over one year 7,280,000,000 grammes or 7,280 tonnes of extra co2 will be pumped into the environment, An extra £4.6 million of fuel will be consumed, and covering almost 35 million extra miles. This doesn’t even included the daily travel of the examiners extra miles. The increased costs of learning to drive with the excessive test increases will cause people to drive illegally. Fatal accidents on Britains roads cost us all, over £5 billion per year, this is set to see a large increase as people opt out of professional tuition. We are seeing 2.5% of our drivers already driving illegally thats average of 500,000 across the country; how many more don’t we know about? The government are ultimately responsible for allowing it to happen.”

Government’s response

The Driving Standards Agency keeps its test centre estate under constant review all the time. It is in the process of closing a number of driving test centres nationally, as part of its programme to open 66 new multi-purpose test centres (MPTC). The 66 new MPTCs are being built mainly to conduct the new motorcycle riding test from 29 September, but they will all offer car tests, and in some places, lorry and bus tests as well. When a new test centre opens some of the Agency’s older test centres will relocate to one of the new MPTCs. This will happen in the case of Warrington.

The new MPTCs are modern, purpose-built, Disability Discrimination Act compliant, providing improved facilities for both customers and staff. The project to build them follows the principles of the Government’s sustainability agenda; for example, the new energy efficient MPTCs will be less expensive to run than traditional test centres and will produce fewer CO2 emissions.


original article can be found at number10