Five lorry testing stations to be closed
Page 28
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
• A threat of closure hangs over five DoE goods vehicle testing stations in England and Scotland. They are the permanent stations at Alvaston, Derby; Chelmsford, Essex; Salisbury, Wiltshire; and Scarborough, Yorkshire; and the part-time station at Keith, Banffshire, which is open three days a week.
The Department of the Environment confirmed to CM this week that it was considering the cost to the testing scheme of maintaining , unremunerative goods vehicle testing stations, but insisted that no decision had yet been taken. The spokesman said that the Road Haulage Association, the Freight Transport Association and other. interested organizations had been notified of the position.
-The FTA and RHA have been assessing the effect on members, in order to make representations to the DoE.
If these stations were closed, it is understood that the saving might be £75,000 a year, but there is still a possibility that some of the threatened stations will be kept open with reduced capacity. For example, the Chelmsford station has two lanes but is using only one, and this might be retained.
The possible closure of Chelmsford brought an immediate request from the National Guild of Transport Managers for the plans to be postponed "until the full implications have been considered." The Guild has made this plea to the Minister for Transport Industries. At a meeting in Colchester on Wednesday, the Guild's general secretary, Mr Frank Coult, said the station was invariably heavily booked and he could not see how there could be any heavy financial loss. In any event, it seemed that any such loss was now to be passed on to operators by way of the additional travelling time to alternative stations.
If Chelmsford is closed, then the hgv driving test centre there would also be shut, it is understood.
The Alvaston station has been running at 11,000 tests a year and the nearest alternatives are Watnall (Nottingham) 16 miles away and the Leicester station 28 miles away. These figures are taken from a survey which FTA has undertaken. The big six-lane station at Watnall is only running at three-length strength at present.
The nearest alternative to Chelmsford (9,000 tests a year) is Purfleet; in the case of Salisbury, running at 4,000 tests a year, Southampton is the nearest alternative, 30 miles away, while the stations at Poole, Caine and Newbury are all 35 miles distant. Scarborough has been undertaking 2400 tests a year; and the nearest alternatives are Beverley at 30 miles and Walton at 40 miles.
In the case of Keith, this has been testing only 300/400 vehicles a year, and the nearest stations are Inverness at 38 miles and Aberdeen at 60. In each case quoted, the distances are in actual road miles.
Although the DoE said on Tuesday that no decision had yet been taken on the closures, the trade associations are under the definite impression that they are likely to be closed by September this year. Closure of the Keith station by September was certainly conveyed to the Banffshire county roads committee last week; the county clerk reported that the surveyor had received a letter to this effect from the DoE. The committee unanimously agreed that action should be taken to try to get a reprieve for the station, the only one in the county.
Whether or not the five stations are closed, changes in test procedure are certainly on the way. Free retests within 24 hours are likely to be eliminated, partly because some operators have been abusing this facility and using the initial test as a check on condition, thus avoiding a pretest check at a commercial garage. The trade associations hope to have the DoE's agreement to a list of small defects which could be retested free without using the main test-station lanes.
Instead of an automatic period of 30 minutes grace for late arrival for test, any such concession is likely to become discretionary, in the manager's hands.