The DVLA will allow customers to drive-away on the day during a four-day outage of its Automated First Registration and Licensing service which clashes with a busy plate-change weekend.

A spokesman told AM that the agency was keen to keep disruption to a minimum during the outage – between midday on Friday, September 9 and Monday, September 12 – and would back-date registrations to allow retailers to sell on-the-day over the busy weekend.

The spokesman told AM: “If a customer wants to drive away when the service is down, which is highly unlikely, we will allow the dealer to register the vehicle with us on the Monday – backdated to the day they pick it up – so their sales won’t be affected.”  

He revealed: “We’re urging users of the service to use the advanced registration facility, however. This means dealers can advance register up to 14 days before the car is picked up so they can plan ahead in plenty of time for the weekend of the 9th.  “

NFDA chief executive Sue Robinson expressed her concerns about the outage in the opening sentiments of the association’s current newsletter.

She said: “The DVLA has put this process in place to reduce disruption, but we understand that this will be a critical time for dealers because of the plate-change.”

The DLVA spokesman told AM that there was “no way” that maintenance of the AFRL system could be moved forward or back to avoid the plate-change clash.

He added: “Due to essential maintenance the Automated First Registration and Licensing service will be temporarily unavailable between Friday 9 and Monday 12 September. 

“We are working closely with the motor industry and we have introduced a number of alternative measures to make sure any disruption is kept to a minimum. We apologise for any inconvenience.”