LEARNER drivers in Basingstoke continue to face a lengthy wait to book a practical test, despite the Driver Vehicle Standards Agency (DVSA) promising to recruit more examiners to help address the problem.

In January 2023, the Gazette reported that some learner drivers could not find any tests available for the rest of the year.

At the time, the DVSA said it was working to minimise disruption caused by examiners going on strike over pay, job security and redundancy terms. Basingstoke test centre, in Brighton Hill, was one of those affected by the strike in January 2023.

However, more than a year later, learner drivers in the town have said that the problems trying to book a practical exam still exist.

READ MORE: Car rental company vans causing nuisance again parking on public road

Aneta Nowak spent four weeks trying to book a practical exam for her 17-year-old son Kacper after he passed his theory test.

The 48-year-old mother-of-two from Buckskin said she had to spend “every available moment” trying to book him a test, before eventually finding one for September this year.

“I sat for weeks checking and I saw the Gazette article from last year and couldn’t believe it’s still so hard to book,” she said, adding: “Why are they letting people pass theory tests when it’s so hard to book a practical exam? I spent four weeks and the site kept kicking me out. It was a nightmare.”

SEE ALSO: Booking issue resulting in customers turned away impacting all 26 Hampshire tips

Aneta said learner drivers are sharing tips on how to find a test sooner, with some swapping them amongst themselves. However, she said this is resulting in fewer tests showing up on the system.

The mum, who works as a cleaner, eventually managed to book a test for Kacper in Portsmouth before swapping it for one in Basingstoke, which she said was easier to do than wait for an available test slot in Basingstoke.

“My son’s instructor said everyone is in the same position. You have to keep going on there again and again. All the time my life was just working then checking every available moment,” she said.

Aneta also tried contacting the DVSA for help but said she couldn’t get through on the phone and kept getting cut off.

The DVSA gave an update on its website in January on what it is doing to reduce the driving test waiting time, including asking managers and admin staff with a driving test warrant card to do driving tests full time from October 2023.

It said since then, it has provided 100,436 extra car driving tests towards a target of 150,000 extra tests by the end of March 2024.

However, data provided by the DVSA showed that waiting times are still longer in highly populated areas and in the south of the country, where the waits are the longest. It showed that the average wait for a test in the south east in January 2024 was 21.4 weeks.

Loveday Ryder, chief executive of DVSA, explained in a blog post published last year that there are three main reasons why driving test waiting times are longer.

She said these are because of an increase in forecast demand caused by a stronger-than-expected economy; sustained industrial action; and low customer confidence in driving test availability, resulting in a change in customers’ booking behaviour.

A DVSA spokesperson said: “Despite unprecedented demand for driving tests, DVSA has created almost 150,000 new tests and provided two million tests in the past year alone.

“We will continue to work tirelessly to push down waiting times even further and we encourage learners to only book their driving test when they feel they are ready to pass.”

The DVSA said it has brought waiting times down from a peak of 20.6 weeks in August 2023 to an average of 17.1 weeks in March 2024.