DVLA sales totals show increasing popularity of private plates
A Freedom of Information request has revealed that the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency has raised over £1.1 billion in personal number plates revenue over the last five years by selling 2,613,830 individual private registrations from the beginning of the 2020 financial year until February 2025. That represents an increase of over £300 million over the total for the previous five years.
The DVLA's figures state that it made precisely £1,172,115,459 during the period, including VAT and assignment fees. The equivalent total for the previous five-year period was £825,360,000.
That 30% difference of £346,755,459 provides yet another indicator of the growing enthusiasm for private number plates, and the continuing health of the personal registrations market.
Plate cloning gets woman blamed for an accident 280 miles away
A Kent motorist realised her car registration plate was cloned after her insurance company said she’d been in an accident 280 miles away, in a case highlighting the increasing menace of car cloning.
Shelli Birkett, of Herne Bay, Kent, was shocked when her insurance company asked her to prove that she and her car had not been involved in an accident in Liverpool. Ms Birkett told a BBC reporter that she has never been to Liverpool in her life, however her insurer required her to prove that she was in Herne Bay at the time of the accident.
She was eventually believed, and the case closed, but Shelli Birkett's experience is not uncommon: it is one of an increasing number of cases where innocent motorists have been accused or penalised for offences committed using cloned copies of their cars' number plates, as Regtransfers has reported many times.
Data released following a Freedom of Information request by car buying/selling website CarWow showed that number plate cloning rose 26% last year, and car owners received nearly 10,000 erroneous penalty notifications as a result. Additional figures reported by the BBC show that Ms Birkett's home county of Kent saw a 37% increase in number plate thefts over the four years from 2020 to 2024.
The increasing use of ANPR (Automatic Number Plate Recognition) cameras means that more offences are caught on camera, so more people are getting unexpected notifications when their plates have been stolen or copied by criminals.
"Offensive" number plate kerfuffle for Bristol couple
John and Jackie Cooke were furious when they were told that the private number plate they purchased from DVLA in 1997 was being withdrawn as it was deemed potentially offensive.
John and Jackie bought N14 GAS for £250, to show their support for local football heroes Bristol Rovers. The club's nickname is "The Gas", and the couple intended that the characters on the number plate should represent the optimistic message "Number one for The Gas!"
In December 2024, almost three decades after DVLA suggested the plate to the couple, they were told that it could be offensive and that their car's original registration number was being reassigned to it. They were also told that they could pick a replacement private number plate for the same price they originally paid. Jackie was annoyed that no mention was made of the inflation that has affected prices since their original purchase.
The couple appealed the decision to withdraw their registration, but DVLA's final decision was that the plate would not be reinstated.
Justifying their decision at the time the registration was withdrawn, DVLA said that N14 GAS had the potential to cause offence as it could be misread as a racial slur.
John and Jackie are still not letting the matter rest. They have raised objections of their own, but not to number plates. They told Bristol Live that they thought a number of postcodes should also have to change because they contained racial slurs. In an email to the head of the DVLA and Secretary of State, the couple wrote,
We have been made aware of residents who live in the Enfield area with postcodes N14 6AS and certain parts of Hackney, London with postcodes N16 6AS, which will by the same criteria be deemed offensive. If car registration N14 GAS is not to be reinstated, please ensure the offending postcodes are removed immediately.
A couple of days after sending the email, the Cookes received a letter confirming that they would not be able to use their N14 GAS registration again.
Withdrawal of registration numbers after they have been issued rarely happens, as DVLA generally blocks potentially offensive registrations from being released in the first place.
Plate theft on the rise in Cotswold town
Thames Valley Police have issued a warning to car owners in the Chipping Norton area of Oxfordshire. The town has seen a marked increase in the theft of car number plates recently.
The police warning came in the form of an online message which said,
While it might seem an odd thing to steal, number plates can be used for various illicit activities, from fuel theft to more severe crimes.
While most people use sticky adhesive, anti-theft number plate screws are a much more effective method of reducing the risk of having number plates stolen.
Southcombe Garage in Chipping Norton have a limited amount of screws which they will fit for free.
Please call ahead for availability.
Anti-theft screws are widely available from hardware stores and major automotive accessory retailers. The simple but ingenious designs allow them to be fitted with a normal screwdriver in some cases or with a special wrench in other cases, but all types require a special tool to remove them. This obviously makes things difficult for opportunist thieves.
Adhesive pads are the officially recommended method of affixing number plates to vehicles, but screws and bolts are still allowed, so long as they don't alter the appearance of the plate or make any of the characters harder to read. If you're feeling particularly paranoid, a combination of adhesive pads and screws or bolts is also permissible.
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