Category - DSA

This is an old story. Note that they stopped doing tests at Clarendon Street in late 2014. Clifton is still used. Watnall is also now on the list – so you have Colwick, Watnall, Beeston, Clifton as valid choices for your test.

I mentioned this in passing a few weeks ago. While registering with the DSA’s new ADI portal I noticed that one of the available Nottingham test venues was listed as Trent University Clifton Campus. At that time there wasn’t any further information available (I suppose if there had, 90% of Nottingham’s ADIs would have been heading over to the Clifton site and causing traffic chaos, just like they did when the Chalfont Drive relocation was mooted).

But now it has been officially announced.

Driving tests are now going to be hosted from Clarendon Street in the City Centre and from the Clifton Campus.

It’s only a trial and tests will only go out two days a week. The trial is expected to last 3 to 6 months, and will commence from March, the report says.

Tests are not restricted to students – they’re a local facility.

I don’t have a problem with either venue and – on paper – this is a great idea. However, I wouldn’t expect the city centre location to end up being very popular with candidates, and with work now technically in progress for the widening of the A453 (and the traffic chaos that will ensue – even above and beyond to continuous chaos that exists due to the A453 not being wider already – I can see the Clifton location faring badly if circumstances on the A453 take a poor turn.

This is one to watch, I think.

The fossils in the PCS union have got yet more strikes on the way – three in quick succession, this time (it’s like when children get more and more naughty until someone takes notice of them).

Planned dates are 1st and 15th of February and 1st March – all in the afternoon. This time, though, the first date covers England, Scotland, and Wales, the second date just England and Scotland, and the last date just Wales (I bet the flip charts were steaming when they worked that one out).

In the link above, the DSA is correctly advising candidates to attend tests as they normally would. That’s because not all examiners are stupid enough to be in the union in the first place, and of those who are not all are THAT stupid that they will get involved in strike action. I should also point out that the further north you travel within the UK, the more stupid people apparently get (based on the statistics for test cancellations the last few strikes).

UPDATE: The one on 1st February has been cancelled. No doubt so it can be rearranged for a more inconvenient time for candidates.

This is an old story. As of September 2014, tests are conducted at Colwick, Beeston (near the train station), Clifton (on the Trent University campus), and Watnall (the old LGV testing station).

Chalfont Drive stopped doing tests in 2013. Clarendon Street (the Trent University campus in the city centre) ceased conducting tests in late August 2014 a few weeks prior to Watnall commencing operations.

UPDATE: From 1st March 2013 tests will be conducted from two temporary addresses – NOT FROM CHALFONT DRIVE.

UPDATE: From 27 June 2013 tests will be conducted from the new Beeston Test Centre. This is the new and permanent location.

The story below is from the archives.

I can’t say I’m surprised. It was reported in November last year that Chalfont Drive Test Centre was closing and moving to Beeston from the start of February 2013. A move had been on the cards for several years.

I reported earlier this month how the manager at Chalfont Drive had had to request that ADIs keep away from the proposed new site, as these idiots had been gridlocking the place in their desire to conduct lessons less than half a mile from whichever test centre their pupils will be taking their tests at. This was apparently jeopardising the deal, for which planning permission was not yet granted.

This email alert from the DSA notes that the move is now postponed. The test centre has been given leave to remain at Chalfont Drive “throughout February”.

The second section of the email is interesting. It says:

Longer term plan

Our longer term plan is still to open a new centre in the Nottingham area. We’ll let you know as soon as we’re able to confirm the operational date and details of the new test centre.

Reading between the lines, the new test centre ISN’T going to be in Beeston. I wonder if those prats who kept going down there are pleased with themselves. Even if it wasn’t they who contributed to the proposed deal in Beeston falling through, their lessons down there were an absolute waste of their pupils’ time (based on their own reasons for going there in the first place).

If the DSA has any sense at all, they won’t announce where the test centre is going to be this time around. Just move it, then tell people where it is and let them whine about it afterwards.

When (and where) will the new centre open?

We don’t know. This time, the DSA probably won’t tell anyone until the deal is done. And who can blame them?

EDIT: See the two updates at the top of this archived story.

An email alert from the DSA says that Halfords has been given the “green light for driving tests”. I wish they’d word the headlines properly so that it doesn’t lead to confusion!

Halfords is NOT going to be providing driving tests, and the spotty oiks who hang around out back smoking roll-ups (and who all have modded Corsas parked outside) are NOT going to be climbing inside the car with you to decide whether you pass or fail. It will be DSA examiners just like it is now.

What is happening is that Halfords is going to be used as the start and finish point for driving tests (instead of it being a purpose-built test centre). It is commencing from Tuesday 5 February in Wellingborough.

All that the email says is that other branches around the country are expected to be offering tests in the coming months. It doesn’t say ALL of them, and it doesn’t say when.

I can’t see the need for Nottingham to do it, for example, when it already has two test centres (as well as something in the pipeline concerning “Clifton Campus” – part of Trent University).