AS leader of the campaign which led to the opening of Trowbridge and Westbury Diving Test Centres under the Taking Testing To The Customer initiative in December 2011 and someone who was a key figure in the national campaign to reduce nationwide driving test waiting times throughout 2016, I read the article about driving instructors being fed up with the DVSA over Trowbridge waiting times, featuring my colleague Steve Dayman-Johns (Wiltshire Times, July 8), with considerable interest.

While Richard Hennessy, of the DVSA, acknowledges that “many of our customers are waiting too long to take a driving test” and re-states the well trodden DVSA line that demand has increased over the past three years and more examiners have been recruited, he did not answer the question posed in the article and by the majority of ADIs together with learner drivers and their families in the Trowbridge and Westbury areas, which is: “Why is the DVSA taking no action to reduce the lengthy waiting times at Trowbridge and Westbury DTCs?”

As of today, the waiting times at Trowbridge and Westbury DTCs are 15 weeks, which is fairly average for them, whereas the waiting time at neighbouring Salisbury DTC is five weeks, which is possibly on the high side of average for it.

The operator of the Westbury DTC venue has and continues to offer the DVSA the opportunity to base an additional examiner there at no cost and the venue has plenty of office and allocated parking space to do so.

Additionally, at least one of the other Taking Testing To The Customer venues, in Warrington, has recently got its status back as a permanent and full time test centre.

Bearing in mind the status of Trowbridge as the county town of Wiltshire and the demand for driving tests in this area, evidenced by the recent move of nearby Frome theory test centre from a temporary to a permanent site, DTCs in Trowbridge and Westbury, or at a single permanent site in the area, should be made permanent with a combined complement of at least three examiners recruited to undertake testing for a total of five days a week.

As a compromise and with potentially only the additional, minimal and not unusual T&S costs of doing so, it is strongly felt that DVSA could and should, at the very least, deploy an additional examiner at Westbury DTC (ideally also at Trowbridge DTC where it is understood directly from the venue operator that this would not be an issue) from Salisbury DTC on the two days each week that testing is undertaken? This will have a minimal effect on waiting times at Salisbury DTC, which are invariably below the DVSA national average waiting time target of six weeks.

Gary Fossey DVSA ADI (Car)
Zander Road
Calne