I WRITE in response to the letter published in the Warrington Guardian by Mr Dominic Breslin. The letter referred to the closure of Warrington Driving Test Centre and was in response to that written by David Mowat, Conservative candidate for Warrington South.

Mr Breslin’s letter was very one-sided in its portrayal of the situation. He talks about the DSA needing to cover costs as a justification for the enormous increases in the cost of a driving test in recent years.

Clearly any organisation must seek to cover its costs but rather than just pile increase after increase on the public should not someone at the DSA be held to account for the increases such as moving to new offices and rolling out a concept of multi-purpose test centres at a cost of millions of pounds? All this for the sake of 1mph for the new requirement of the motorbike test!

Surely we have a right to question why the DSA did not question whether the new EU requirement for bike tests could not have been carried out on the road and sought a concession from the relevant body within the EU for the 1 mph reduction?

The WPDIA understands that such a concession would have been readily granted. Or at least looked into some lower cost option? But no, the DSA embarks upon a multi million pound building programme of regionally selected MPTCS and justifies it by citing the requirement to carry out the new requirement of the motorbike test at 50km ie 31mph!

Of course, to make these new centres viable then a number of local test centres such as Warrington were closed down and to cover the cost test fees were hiked yet again.

A further point in Mr Breslin’s letter claims that Warrington Borough Council failed to offer the DSA any alternative site. It was not approached by the DSA until forced to by the WPDIA to concede that a theoretical offer from the council could be considered if a site could be found. By this time land had already been bought and built on in St Helens.

The WPDIA would welcome a debate with Mr Breslin on the closure of Warrington Test Centre when all relevant facts can be discussed. This would serve the public of Warrington better than Mr Breslin’s letter which frankly amounts to a distortion of the true situation. MARK BLACKBURN Secretary, Warrington Professional Driving Instructors Association