Written question asked by Greg Knight (Conservative) on Thursday, 12 March 2009, in the House of Commons. It was due for an answer on Wednesday, 18 March 2009. It was answered by Jim Fitzpatrick (Labour) on Wednesday, 18 March 2009 on behalf of the Department for Transport.

Lorries: Testing

Question: To ask the Secretary of State for Transport for what reasons annual testing for heavy goods vehicles is not available outside normal business hours.

Answer: The testing of heavy goods vehicles (HGV's) outside of normal business hours is and has been routinely available for some years now at a number of stations. As an example, in the period April 2008 to February 2009 the Vehicle and Operator Services Agency (VOSA) conducted 21,837¹ HGV tests out of normal core business hours. This equates to approx. 19,300 hours of testing conducted out of hours. Testing outside of normal business hours is not routinely available at all sites due to a number of reasons including demand, resources and restrictions on opening hours due to the location of some testing stations. The demand for testing out of normal hours is in turn seasonal, geographical and varies by customer."¹ This figure includes 3,675 re-tests."

Secondary information