Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, how many driving test appointments on 14 September will be made available in (a) Poole, (b) Southampton and (c) Salisbury; for what reason it is not possible to reopen the test centre at Gillam road in Bournemouth to help meet demand; and if he will make a statement.

From 14 September 2020, there will be a up to approximately 700 practical driving tests available in Poole, Southampton and Salisbury. The number of tests available is likely to change depending on driving examiner availability.

The Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency (DVSA) will be extending the period in which tests are available from 6 weeks to 18 weeks ahead from 14 September 2020. This will add over 375,000 more test appointments between 14 September 2020 and the end of January 2021.

The DVSA will not re-open Bournemouth driving test centre (DTC) to help meet demand. On 12 August 2019, the DVSA took the difficult decision not to re-open Bournemouth DTC. This is because the property is in a poor state and the DVSA judges the cost of repairing it would be too high.