Green light granted for new out-of-town MOT centre on edge of Newtownabbey

The centre is in the Antrim and Newtownabbey Borough Council area, and would stand to the west of the Mallusk industrial zone.

There are currently 15 MOT test centres in Northern Ireland, including the existing Mallusk centre.

The new MOT hub will be about a mile away from the old one, as the crow flies.

Announcing the granting of planning permission by its planning committee, Antrim and Newtownabbey council said the new centre will employ 41 people, will have nine lanes (seven for cars, two for HGVs), and will amount to an investment of £9.7m.

In all, the objective is to cater to 400 tests each day.

Mayor Stephen Ross said in a statement: “Vehicle testing centres have been under immense pressure to meet the demands for tests following COVID, and the increased capacity of this new site will help address this issue.”

And Fraser Agnew MBE, chairman of the committee, said: “This is great news for the borough. This will contribute to the council’s plans for £1bn investment and the creation of 2,500 high paid jobs by 2025.”

The application was initially submitted by the DVA last November.

At that time, the estimated opening date was spring 2024.

The committee made their decision on December 12, but the council only announced it had happened on Tuesday this week (December 20).

It comes a couple of years after an application was approved by Lisburn and Castlereagh City Council for a new DVA centre at Hydebank to the south of Belfast.

The DVA has been under incredible pressure in recent years to clear a stubborn backlog of MOT tests – something made worse by the suspension of testing during the Covid lockdowns.

When the News Letter last investigated at the start of autumn, some test centres had five-month waits.

In early 2022, the then-infrastructure minister Nichola Mallon signalled that there is an appetite for moving towards a two-year testing regime for vehicles, instead of an annual one.

‘Radical moves’ needed to smash Northern Ireland’s MOT logjam as DUP man wonders what happened to idea of biennial tests

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