Local DVLA office closures - cherished plates

[mybrainhurts]

Now that DVLA offices are no longer handling the transfer of cherished plates, does anybody know how long it takes to process a transfer through Swansea?

DVLA Sheffield has ceased, pending closure. I assume all other offices are doing the same.

[LHD]

Post.

It's being tested now and it's a fking disaster.

[mybrainhurts]

There's a surprise....

[Klippie]

Got mine done at the local office a couple of weeks ago, I asked the same question as the OP when I was in there and was told 3-4 weeks.

3-4 weeks v's 15 mins over the counter...fking Tories and their cutbacks.

[mybrainhurts]

Klippie said:

.fking Tories and their cutbacks.

Wasn't this set in motion by Prudence Brown?

[petewaugh]

I understand that some of the larger post offices are taking responsibility for some tasks previously only taken care of by the local offices, such as changing a V5 from disabled/tax exempt back to normal. I don't know if they will also do cherished plates, but can't see why it wouldn't be possible. Surely there will be much more stuff done online too, taking care of these things by post seems a bit mad!

[Justin Case]

About 3 weeks with Mrs Case's new car. Our local office (Birmingham) is a model of efficiency, always gets things right and takes about 15-20 minutes no matter what you are doing. One of the few things DVLA gets right, Swansea is so inefficient it's bound to cost more when they close own the local offices for a miniscule potential saving.

[B'stard Child]

Justin Case said:

About 3 weeks with Mrs Case's new car. Our local office (Birmingham) is a model of efficiency, always gets things right and takes about 15-20 minutes no matter what you are doing. One of the few things DVLA gets right, Swansea is so inefficient it's bound to cost more when they close own the local offices for a miniscule potential saving.

Totally Agree when I had an issue with DVLA and correspondance with Swansea wasn't working I went to the local office and it was sorted out in mins

So looking forward to the next issue when after October 2013 I won't have a local office to deal with....

Another typically stupid idea from DVLA - Create 3 jobs in wales lose 1,000 jobs country wide.

[B'stard Child]

Latest Planned closure dates if anyone is interested

October 2013	November 2013	December 2013
Aberdeen	Bangor	Birmingham
Bournemouth	Beverley	Borehamwood
Brighton	Chester	Bristol
Carlisle	Dundee	Cardiff
Chelmsford	Exeter	Glasgow
Edinburgh	Inverness	Leeds
Ipswich	Maidstone	Manchester
Lincoln	Peterborough	Newcastle
Norwich	Sidcup	Northampton
Oxford	Theale	Nottingham
Sheffield	Truro	Portsmouth
Shrewsbury	Worcester	Preston
Stockton	N/A	Wimbledon
Swansea	N/A	N/A

[Raify]

Even though the Maidstone office is officially still open according to that list, it no longer does cherished plate transfers. Might be the same with the rest.

I've recently experienced a transfer. Took about 8 working days from sending the forms to getting the retention certificate.

[B'stard Child]

The Crack Fox said:

B'stard Child said:

Latest Planned closure dates if anyone is interested

October 2013	November 2013	December 2013
Aberdeen	Bangor	Birmingham
Bournemouth	Beverley	Borehamwood
Brighton	Chester	Bristol
Carlisle	Dundee	Cardiff
Chelmsford	Exeter	Glasgow
Edinburgh	Inverness	Leeds
Ipswich	Maidstone	Manchester
Lincoln	Peterborough	Newcastle
Norwich	Sidcup	Northampton
Oxford	Theale	Nottingham
Sheffield	Truro	Portsmouth
Shrewsbury	Worcester	Preston
Stockton	N/A	Wimbledon
Swansea	N/A	N/A

Thats's handy.

Nottingham are great, I much prefer dealing with people over the counter than by post/online, it's quicker and more reliable. Bloody cutbacks

Ahh but I'm sure service provide by a centralised operation will be the peak of efficiency and effectiveness - correspondence when something goes wrong will lead to frequent rants on here

[saaby93]

Very depressing
The local office knew best how to help the customer
If they werent popular why were the queues so long

[aw51 121565]

Preston and Manchester have served me well in the past .

Aren't their duties meant to be being taken over by shops on the high street (with similar services and - my presumption - visits from an "internal mail courier" a la NHS [or DX])?

I'd expect us not to be dealing solely with Stalag Swansea - but the whole episode is and all bets are off .

[V88Dicky]

Stockton were excellent just this Monday morning. Went in, was 3rd in the queue, took a seat at the counter. Pretty young lady took the V5 and ran some checks on it, replaced the tax disc, and that was it. 10 minutes in total.

God 'elp us when it's all centralised. I thought centralisation was consigned to the history books!

[fenderbender]

Update: I wanted to move a cherished plate to certificate and have the donor car re-registered. Despite instructions to send all the paperwork to Northampton nothing has yet happened and we are three weeks into the process. Northampton has closed by now (Dec 13) so I cannot even ring up to ask what is going on. I would not mind so much were it not for the fact that I cannot sell the donor car until the new V5 has arrived - and no acknowledgement has been sent by DVLA simply to let me know there might be a delay. Not impressed.

[Shaw Tarse]

It only took a couple of weeks to put my "vanity" plate on retention & original plate back on car.

[powerstroke]

I'm sure the fraudsters are pleased !!!local offices are closed and the paper tax discs going
Ringing and cloning will be easy

[RWA441]

fenderbender said:

Update: I wanted to move a cherished plate to certificate and have the donor car re-registered. Despite instructions to send all the paperwork to Northampton nothing has yet happened and we are three weeks into the process. Northampton has closed by now (Dec 13) so I cannot even ring up to ask what is going on. I would not mind so much were it not for the fact that I cannot sell the donor car until the new V5 has arrived - and no acknowledgement has been sent by DVLA simply to let me know there might be a delay. Not impressed.

You say you sent it to the Northampton branch? Isn't the idea of the whole postal setup that they are now sent to Swansea?
I sent the appropriate stuff to something like DVLA Cherished numbers, Swansea SA99 *** and had everything back within 10 working days.
It was actually far easier than driving to Chester, getting ripped off for parking for half an hour and sitting in a queue at the office there. I do however feel sorry for any of the workers there who may have lost their jobs as they were usually very nice and helpful there.

[TooMany2cvs]

Last time I dealt with a local office, it got mucked up massively. After a year, and two inspections of the car, they still hadn't processed a body style change on the V5C.

Then the office closed, and it got shifted to Swansea.

One phone call and one week later, a shiny V5C with changed details arrived.

Bring. It. On.