MP secures Levelling Up Minister meeting over Whitchurch Civic Centre

Levelling Up Minister Jacob Young MP has agreed to meet with North Shropshire MP Helen Morgan over the future of Whitchurch Civic Centre and Whitchurch Driving Test Centre.

MP Helen Morgan outside Whitchurch Civic Centre

This comes after plans to re-open the driving test facility faced a setback due to the discovery of RAAC in Whitchurch Civic Centre, a space which had made an offer to host the Test Centre at a peppercorn rate. The MP has previously cited the ‘huge backlog’ of driving tests in the county as behind her commitment to campaigning efforts to lobby the DVSA and Ministers over the Driving Test Centre.

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Helen Morgan, MP for North Shropshire, commented: “If the Government is serious about levelling up areas like North Shropshire, it should take issues like the need for both a Civic Centre and a Driving Test Centre in Whitchurch seriously.

“I am really pleased to have secured a meeting with the Minister to discuss this issue in more detail and to push for progress. A town the size of Whitchurch in a rural area like North Shropshire needs a driving test facility to cut the huge backlog in tests and give our young people the chance to get on the road without an L plate. It also needs its Library and civic space urgently re-opened.

Helen Morgan MP asked Levelling Up Minister Jacob Young MP: “Whitchurch in my constituency hasn’t received any Levelling Up funding, whether from the Levelling Up Fund itself, the Towns Fund, or the Future High Streets Fund. Now, it finds itself without a civic centre because of dangerous RAAC.

“That means it’s lost its library, its registry office and its soon-to-be-reopened driving test centre following a long campaign by myself and others.

“Will the Minister meet with me to work out what we can do to put this important building back into the heart of Whitchurch?”