I went to the local DVLA office in Chelmsford today. Expecting a dark, scruffy, peeling "starved of funds" generic government type office, I was actually very impressed.
It was bright, clean, had a TV for people who can't sit for a minute without being entertained in some way, a computer screen showing the next number to be called and seats with the ticket numbers on them.
I took my ticket and sat down. Within 30secs, a young man came out and asked if he could check my paperwork to ensure I didn't waste my; or their, time. When he saw I had a RFL refund request and sale/transfer form he said he'd take them for me and pass on to Swansea.
There was even adequate free parking in the yard too.
PS-I could have posted them, but I don't trust Royal Snail. And anyway, I wanted to drive my new car on the country lanes, open it up a bit.
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Their previous two offices in Chelmsford(Globe house and Baddow Rd.) were good and the staff have always been excellent-first used them in the 70's.
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Maybe their nice offices and efficiency (my local one is very, very good in both respects) are subsidised by personalised number plate sales ! Mind you that wouldn't sit comfortably with certain members of the BR !
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I cannot remember the actual figure, but years ago I had a tour of DVLA Swansea and cherished plates came up. Back then the sale of plates was many tens of millions of pounds per annum!
I popped into a DVLA office the other week to make sure my photo for my new driving licence (10 years up) was okay. I was then going to post it but they took it off me, gave me a receipt and sent in the internal post. I didn't go out of my way mind because their office was next door to the one I was visiting.
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sit comfortably with certain members of the BR !
I<3DVLA
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For the second year running I renewed my RFL on-line a few weeks ago.
It was done early on a Tuesday afternoon and the RFL arrived in the Thursday morning postal delivery. Excellent service as well.
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I simply refuse to renew online although I don't doubt it works well for people who can't (be bothered to) nip out to their local post office, etc. I just don't wish them to have the 'funds' more than 24-hrs before they're finally due.
Old habits/Yorkshire parsimoniousness (can I say that) die hard I guess?...
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>>I simply refuse to renew online >>
Perhaps you don't have a disabled wife to look after..:-)
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No, but I'm sorry to learn that you do?
I bank online, I shop online, I date online (of course I don't), repeat to fade... ...but when I really don't need to pay for something until the day before it's due I simply choose not to Stu!
You can call me old-fashioned...
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>>You can call me old-fashioned...>>
No, you seem to generally be pretty much on the ball...:-)
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My only experience of DVLA offices of late has been with the Northampton branch when working for M-B. How quickly you progressed through the queue was really down to pot-luck on a daily basis. As you've suggested some days you could be extremely lucky ? take your deli-counter ticket and get called-up almost immediately ? whereas at other times it could be a 30min+ wait!
The main cause of the 'other times' was almost always usually down to Africans & East European's (I'm not having a dig, etc.) who didn't speak particularly good English and as such had brought along three mates to translate, and/or didn't possess all of the required paperwork, which took a bit of repeated explanation.
But yep, they too had a 'youngster' who worked the room in the manner you've described (perhaps that's part of their induction) and also some free parking out front, although if I was in a new plated demo I used to stand looking out of the window watching for somebody to donk-it! Don't you just hate side-by-side parking...
...so, a lot like a doctor's surgery then, but with a greatly reduced quotient of wailing kids in evidence.
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I have used the on-line tax disc renewal system for quite a while now. I have only known it not to work when SWMBO forgets to tell me that a reminder or the disc itself has arrived in the mail......[sigh].... so it actually works perfectly! Latest disc arrived within a couple of days.
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recently used it to change a classic car on SORN back to being on the road, there being no fee to pay as it is classified as 'historic'....fully expected that to be a "computer says no", but fair enough, it went through swimmingly
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