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An indiscernible major change The changes so far described have for the most part been the result of needing to accommodate increased vehicle ownership. In 1974, what is arguably the most major change of the registration system occurred, but this was not the direct result of the need to "enlarge" the system to cope with more vehicles. Furthermore, the changes would have been totally unnoticeable to the casual observer. Since the inception of the British system in 1903 all vehicle records had been helf in manual form. The records were kept by the authority in which the vehicle keeper resided. Thus, if the police or other official body needed to trace a vehicle's details, they would contact the local authority whose code letters appeared on the plate. Thus, if details of say, ABC 123 were required, Leicester would be contacted as BC denoted Leicester. In many cases, however, the records would no longer be held with the original authority, so the enquiry would be referred on to another local authority in which the keeper now resided. This clearly was not very efficient. Computers had developed to a point where a central computer record could be kept. The decision was made to have a central office at Swansea, the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Centre, with regional offices, Local Vehicle Licensing Offices (LVLO's - now called Local Offices or LO's), responsible for registration of new vehicles. As with many new computer systems, delays occurred in the introduction of this one. The original plan was that the new system should be introduced on 1 January 1974, during the "M" year. So that local authority and LVLO issues could readily be distinguished, at the beginning of the "M" year, local authorities were instructed to issue M-registrations commencing only with letters in the second half of the alphabet, i.e. N to Y. Some authorities, however, managed to break this rule! As it happened, the new system was not introduced til 1 October 1974, early in the "N" year. As a result of the way local authority issues had progressed, the decision was made that local authority "N" issues could commence with A to F or N to Y and LVLO issues would be in the range G to M. One corollary of this is that vehicles registered in August or September 1974 are instantly recognisable! Obviously, it was necessary to reallocate codes under the new system from local authorities to LVLO's. For the most part, codes "moved" to the nearest LVLO or one relatively near. For instance, Chelmsford LVLO "inherited" Essex's and Southend's codes, plus AR from Hertfordshire. Some codes did, however, "leap across the country". In particulary, Scotland was considered to be over-provided with codes, so many Scottish codes "came south". Until 1974, any code containing "S" was automatically recognisable as a Scottish code, but GS was then moved from Perthshire to Luton and WS from Edinburgh to Bristol. Originally, there were 81 LVLO's. In 1980 (the "W"
year), however, following a report from a commission headed by
Lord Rayner, the then chairman of Marks and Spencer, 29 LVLO's
were closed as an economy measure. In most cases when an office
has been closed, a nearby one has taken over responsibility for
the issue of the marks from the closed office. Practice in this
respect has varied, some such local marks being used much more
widley than others. Since the 1980 round of closures, a further
11 offices have been closed, so now 41 LO's remain. |
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