Post-Brexit – Delays on the publication on technical requirements for GB type-approvals, covering England, Scotland and Wales
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The UK’s Vehicle Certification Agency (VCA) has emitted three letters to update the existing rules on type‑approvals covering vehicles or their components in United-Kingdom.
They result from the delay taken to prepare the technical requirements to be used as a reference to grant a full GB type-approval (applicable in Great Britain, which covers England, Scotland and Wales; vehicles sold in Northern Ireland will still be able to be covered by an EU type-approval, as long as the manufacturer has a distributor settled in Northern Ireland).
The three letters cover the extension of application of provisional GB type-approvals – registration to VCA of an EU type-approval without further validation procedure –, the rules on Conformity of Production (COP) and the rules for retained e11 type-approvals – European type-approval originally granted by UK authorities, which was not transferred into another authority of the EU.
When it comes to the GB type-approvals, a new calendar was published on the implementation dates of GB type‑approvals on vehicles or components. This impacts in particular:
- engines for NRMM: extension of one year of the application dates for the provisional GB type‑approvals, which must be carried out between 1st June 2022 and 1st January 2023;
- agricultural tractors under category T, for which a full GB type‑approval must be granted between 1st December 2022 and 1st June 2023. When a new type is released meanwhile, the manufacturer has the possibility to proceed to a provisional GB type‑approval
- components for tractors of category T for use in the whole vehicle are subject to a provisional GB type-approval until the end of 2022 and to a full GB type-approval between 1st December 2022 and 1st January 2024. This also applies to aftermarket components, only where specific requirements and deadlines exist.
Concerning COP, all holders of provisional GB type-approvals will be contacted by the VCA in 2022, in order to organise an audit plan to prepare the GB full type-approvals. Contrarily to provisional GB type-approval, where a COP certificate is provided by the authority who granted the original EU type-approval, a GB full type-approval will need a validation of the COP done by VCA. This plan will take into account all the assembly plants producing vehicles sold in UK with at least one visit every three years in each site.
Finally, rules have been clarified on retained e11 type-approvals: these have been automatically converted to a UK(NI) approval, which allows the product to be sold throughout UK – England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland –, but not in the EU. In this case, the manufacturer must have a representative in the EU or in Northern Ireland. The possibility will be given to reclassify this UK(NI) approval into a GB type-approval.