Historically and in our experience, an operator licence application can take between 9-12 weeks to be granted. However in recent times, we have been able to help businesses receive their operator licence within 4-5 weeks which demonstrates the value of involving specialist consultants like GRT.
The time it takes for your licence to be granted depends greatly on the information disclosed at the point of application. Many operators submit incomplete or inaccurate applications which take time to be processed and then have to be sent back out to be recompleted. Failure to disclose previous history in the licencing system or unspent convictions for example, can result in your application being referred to the Traffic Commissioner who may decide a Public Inquiry is required. In some extreme cases, we've seen applications take up to 1 year to be granted which has an obvious debilitating effect on the business.
If you need to start operating sooner, you can request interim authorisation – contact us for more information.