Newslink December final

Area news
Great conference leaves us in the know
on EVs, tax, disabled drivers and DVSA
Arthur Mynott
MSA GB
West Coast & Wales
The MSA GB West Coast & Wales Area 4
Conference and AGM took place at the
Gloucester Robinswood Hotel, Gloucester on
Thursday, 6th November, and our audience of
ADIs were treated to a wide range of excellent
presenters relevant to our industry.
The day started with a welcoming speech
from yours truly, and then I introduced our
first speaker, Matt Cleevely from Cleevely
Electric Vehicles, a local garage company
which kindly supplied a couple of EVs for test
drives on the day.
Matt was a mine of information on electric
cars, their servicing, repair and the many
different makes and models. He discussed
many of the myths surrounding these
vehicles, answering lots of questions from
the audience. He was so enthusiastic about it
even I was almost inclined to buy one!
This was followed by a presentation from
Alan Gott of FBTC Accountancy Services, the
MSA GB recommended accountants. I had
met Alan earlier this year and asked if he
would like to come to our event to talk about
‘Making Tax Digital’, so the seed was sown.
Alan introduced himself by saying he was
from FBTC but was going to talk about
making tax digital, and not his company. He
said that he was a Geordie through and
through but had left his cloth cap at home,
and he was a self-confessed ‘tax nerd’!
Alan explained how Making Tax Digital
would affect us as driving instructors when it
eventually comes in, such as submitting
quarterly accounts as well as annual
accounts, the fines you would get for not
doing so on time plus the apps and software
you would need to do this.
He explained everything we needed to
know in easy-to-understand terms and
answered lots and lots of questions from the
audience. It was a shame when I had to ask
him to finish because of time restraints but
he and his colleague Jason stayed for the rest
of the day to enjoy the other speakers, and
were on hand to answer more questions.
After a short refreshment break our next
speaker was Haydn Jenkins from Disability
Driving Instructors. Many of you will have
heard about this excellent organisation,
which offers driving lessons to people who
are mildly or severely disabled, are hearing
impaired or suffer from other cognitive
disabilities.
Haydn showed us a host of pictures of the
various driving aids available to disabled
drivers, such as the hand accelerator/brake
control and the ‘lollipop’ control on the
steering wheel, among others.
I was intrigued by the fact that there are no
wires on the lollipop; it was connected via
Bluetooth to a panel behind the dashboard,
the wonders of modern technology.
Haydn closed his presentation by showing
a video of a woman with no arms driving and
steering her car with her legs.
Disability Driving Instructors is always on
the look-out for new instructors throughout
the country as its aim is to provide a suitably
qualified instructor within a radius of 40-50
miles from any disabled driver. If you are
interested in finding more about them then
please contact me on my details below, and I
will pass on your details.
AGM
Following Haydn’s presentation, we held
our AGM which was conducted by MSA GB
National Chairman Mike Yeomans. The Area
Committee were elected to their previous
positions.
Following the AGM we held a minute’s
silence in memory of Clive Snook, the former
MSA GB Western Chairman and long-
30 NEWSLINK n DECEMBER 2023