My manager has a car in Switzerland (registered and insured over there). He wants to bring said car to the UK for 4 months so I contacted the various people that needed contacting and got the wheels in motion: congestion charge, auto pay for parking meters, the Swiss insurance etc... final one was Chelsea Council to arrange a parking permit and that's when it all fell apart.
The person I spoke to said that according to the DVLA, as a UK resident you have to register any foreign vehicle with the DVLA immediately once you enter the UK and have the number plates changed to UK plates etc and that the council as a matter of course does not issue parking permits for foreign registered vehicles if the owner is a UK resident. So I contacted the DVLA and HMRC to find out a bit more and after over an hour on the phone both have verbally confirmed (unfortunately they are unable to put it in writing
) that because the car will only be here for 4 months it actually doesn't have to be re-registered and it can be driven in the UK. So I called the council again and told them that, but regardless of me giving them names and reference numbers they will not budge. The manager isn't even willing to contact the DVLA or for me to contact them and put them through to her etc. THEY WILL NOT issue a parking permit - end of! And best is, when I said I could try and get someone from the DVLA to speak to her to confirm what I was told she replied: "The DVLA cannot tell us who we should issue permits to or not; we don't take instruction from them"... yet they are the ones who are sticking to their guns because according to the DVLA website it says you have to register the car...
So on the one hand it suits them to follow instructions, but on the other hand they won't be told if there is an exception to said instruction.
sigh - is it too early for a drink?
