The government’s much publicised ‘red tape challenge’, under which what’s considered to be unnecessary and over-complex regulation is being removed, is starting to have an impact on motorists – and so far at least it looks like being good news for the classic car movement.

One change that’s definitely coming – though when has yet to be confirmed − that will definitely make life easier for us is removal of the need for SORN declarations to be renewed annually. Under the new rules, once a vehicle has been declared SORN the declaration will remain valid until the vehicle is either re-licensed or declared scrapped.

Besides making life easier for those of us with off-road vehicles – and removing the risk of an £80 fine for ‘forgetting’ to tell the government something it knows already – this will also mean anyone who effectively ‘scraps’ a car themselves can simply notify it as SORN instead of scrapped, and will not have to continue confirming this long after the vehicle has to all intents and purposes ceased to exist other than as a pile of parts. .

As we announced last year, in our August 3 issue, paper driving licence counterparts are to be phased out by 2015, on the basis that all information on them is stored on computer and can be downloaded at the roadside by police etc., anyway. It’s also planned that V5C registration documents for fleet operators will be in electronic form, with paper copies issued on request only. This change may also be rolled out to private motorists in due course.

Other proposed changes include removing insurance certificates as insurance can now easily be checked online. It’s also proposed that the need to prove you have insurance when applying for road tax be removed because the new automatic ‘continuous insurance’ checks compare DVLA and Motor Insurance Database records regularly and thus identify uninsured drivers anyway.

Oh, and government have also made one proposal that few are likely to object to; abolishing the current requirement for bus companies to hold on to perishable ‘lost property’ left on the bus for 48 hours before disposal....