How’s this for manipulation of the facts for political purposes? This is Cheshire reports that the DSA is to trial conducting driving tests from hotels or council-owned buildings in Warrington. The test centre there closed down three years ago as a new MPTC was opened in St Helens.
For the record, St Helens is 10 miles away from Warrington. This morning, I travelled 11 miles to pick up a pupil. For the hard of thinking out there, that means he lives roughly 10 miles away from the test centre. It’s no big deal, really. Not like it is to David Mowat MP in Warrington. He said:
The last Labour Government took the ridiculous decision to scrap the popular and well-used Driving Test Centre in Warrington based on an over-zealous interpretation of an EU Directive.
I understand that the DSA is now looking at reinstating services in some parts of the country, possibly including Warrington.
Mowat is a Conservative if you hadn’t already worked it out.
Councillor Paul Campbell lays it on even thicker:
Local Instructors saw their business disappear and local learners saw their pass rates fall as they were forced to travel longer distances to drive on unfamiliar roads.
It’s 10 MILES for heaven’s sake! You’d think it was on the other side of the world. Instructors should be covering that area anyway if they’re doing their jobs properly, because 10 miles is local.
Anyway, poking through the political nonsense, this is not a backdown of any kind – it is a new idea that would allow tests to be carried out in places they never have been before. Peripatetic examiners, if you like. MPTCs are still there, and so they should be.