50,000 MOT tests cancelled in Northern Ireland

At least 50,000 MOT tests have been cancelled in Northern Ireland since testing ground to a halt a month ago. The Northern Ireland MOT process was thrown in crisis on 21 January after cracks were found on lifts at many test centres owing to the fact that all MOTs are run by the DVA, a Northern Ireland government agency, which had bulk bought the same model of lift for all its centres.

Writing in a statement on 24 February, the Department for Infrastructure said: “As of today, since the disruption began on 21 January, DVA has carried out over 54,000 vehicle tests. Cancellations to date are circa 50,000.” Therefore, roughly half of scheduled tests were cancelled. All 15 DVA test centres are now open, but there is clearly a large backlog and the centres are not yet operating at full capacity.

The DVA figure gives us the opportunity to estimate what the MOT crisis has down for Northern Ireland tyre demand during the last month. According to DfT data across the whole of the UK, 7.5 per cent of MOT failures were due to tyres. Of course some tyres are replaced at the point of MOT failure and some at the point of advisory, but based on the 50,000 test figure, Northern Ireland’s tyre demand is likely to have reduced by some 6,666 tyres during the last month.