And so another year draws to a close, and it's been an eventful year for us.
"May you live in interesting times ", says the old curse. No matter which origin story, if any, you choose to believe, the 'interesting' is clearly a euphemism for 'troubling'. We, like many other people, find ourselves living in those interesting times: much of the last year has been challenging, some of it has been sad, but a lot of it has been happy and optimistic.
Motoring in 2023
Environmental concerns were seldom far from the headlines in 2023. In the UK, the official response has been mixed and while low-emissions zones have been expanded and some areas have introduced new scrappage schemes in order to reduce the number of old, inefficient and highly polluting vehicles, we are still a long way from where we need to be. The government backpedalled on its own target dates for the banning of petrol and diesel vehicles, and commentators have highlighted the inadequacies in current and proposed electric vehicle infrastructure.
Congestion is also a growing problem and, according to an RAC report, 62% of drivers say they have spent longer in congested traffic on urban roads than 12 months ago. Once again, the official response has been mixed. While the government has extended the current £2 per journey cap on many bus fares throughout 2024, almost a quarter of bus routes have been scrapped since 2021. Support for tram networks has shrunk, as has spending on cycling infrastructure.
As for rail transport, fares rose by 5.9% in March 2023 and are expected to rise by more than that in 2024, and continual disruption due to industrial action has not done anything to encourage more people to travel by train instead of car. It looks as if road congestion is unlikely to improve in the near future.
The year in number plates
As always, the year delivered two new series releases. The 2023 plates bore the identifiers 23 and 73.
2023 saw the end of an era, when the last DVLA live auction took place at Stratford Manor Hotel in Stratford-upon-Avon on the 18th, 19th and 20th October. It was an emotional occasion as Regtransfers has attended every single auction since they began in 1989 and, business aside, the auctions presented an opportunity to catch up with friends. In recognition of his faithful attendance at the sales, our buy-in manager, John Doherty was presented with the auctioneer's gavel and block when the sale ended. All DVLA auctions going forward will now be online events.
In total, 17,823 registrations were sold in the DVLA auctions this year, and buyers spent £48,947,847 including auctioneers' fees and taxes.
Top DVLA auction sales were H1 NDU, which sold for £143,901 (including fees and taxes), 1 DEO at £136,300, 42 O at £124,204 and DEO 1S at £102,813.
£143,901
£136,300
£124,204
At Regtransfers, we were as busy as ever. Between 1st December 2022 and 1st December 2023 we sold over 45,000 registrations. Our top sales included some great name and word plates, but the top 20 consisted mostly of number 1 registrations of one kind or another. The appeal of RON 1 and 1 JON are obvious at a glance. The meaning of DOG 1 is equally clear, although the purchaser's reason for wanting it is perhaps less apparent. Single letter+single digit plates are another perennial favourite, so the presence of N 4 among our top sales was no surprise. Number 1 initials also remain firm favourites and those that found new homes in the last year included LM 1, NR 1, LS 1, HD 1, 1 SD, 1 EM and many more.
The World of Personal Number Plates
Our free magazine, The World of Personal Number Plates, is now 20 years old. We produced our first issue in 2003 and the magazine has been published continuously ever since. Even now, so many years after it first appeared, our magazine is unique in our industry. What's more, it is one of the most widely circulated automotive magazines in the country.
In 2023, as always, we brought you exclusive celebrity interviews and photographs. Our guests included model, racing driver and YouTuber Jodie Kidd, world heavyweight champion boxer Tyson Fury and former Strictly Come Dancing pro James Jordan, and, as always, the content was exclusively created by us for you. We don't buy syndicated articles: our reporter interviews the celebs, our photographer and videographer capture the images and our in-house team writes and produces the magazine. The world of number plates is a rich and diverse place: if it weren't, we could never have filled 20 years' worth of magazines on the subject.
The world of Regtransfers
As a family, we at Regtransfers saw some changes. At the end of 2022, our long-serving company secretary and resident bird-watching expert, Paul Brown, retired after 37 years with the company. Paul, brother of our MD, Tony, was always there, in the thick of it, no matter what was happening. Hardly surprising that it's taken us much of 2023 to get used to his absence.
Ready to step into the breach and keep things running smoothly was our former operations manager, Mark Trimbee, who was promoted to the position of chief executive officer.
In March 2023 we also said goodbye to our friend and colleague Kim Keegan, who passed away after a long illness. Kim was a real character, loved by friends, colleagues and customers alike. We still miss her.
Onwards and upwards
So, the year is done and we look to the future. We remain grateful for the robust nature of our industry and the private registrations market that has remained buoyant despite the ups, downs and uncertainties of economic fortune. We are also grateful to our customers, many of them repeat customers over many years, without whom we couldn't exist.
Sorry to say that we don't have a crystal ball and, even if we did, we wouldn't know how to use it, so the future is as much a mystery to us as it is to you. Nevertheless, a new year is always an exciting prospect. We're optimistic about 2024. Just think: it will be a leap year, so we'll get 366 days for the price of 365. Now that's got to be a bargain.
We'll close on that hopeful note, and wish you all a very happy and peaceful new year.
