Cancellation Policy

Why it works this way

When you book, that time comes out of the diary and nobody else is offered it. A single lesson can usually be filled again at a couple of days’ notice. A discounted package means we have held a run of slots for you, and an intensive course means we clear other lessons and obligations for a week or two. Those are much harder to fill at short notice, which is why the notice period is longer.

Give us the notice set out above and there is no charge and nothing to argue about — we will simply find you another slot.

How to cancel or rearrange

Ring or message us and tell us as early as you can. Rearranging counts the same as cancelling: if you move a lesson inside its notice period, it is treated as a late cancellation of the original slot.

Notice is counted from the start time of the lesson — not from the end of the day, and not from when you meant to call. For an intensive course it is counted from the first day of the course.

Single lessons — 48 hours

This covers 1 hour, 1.5 hour and 2 hour lessons, and also motorway lessons, Pass Plus, mock tests and refresher lessons.

With at least 48 hours’ notice, the lesson is moved or cancelled free of charge. Inside 48 hours the lesson is charged in full, and if it was prepaid the hours are not returned to your balance. A lesson you do not turn up for is treated the same way.

10 and 20 hour packages — 5 days

Our 10 and 20 hour packages are discounted: you pay £38.50 or £37 an hour instead of £45, in exchange for committing to the block up front. Because of that commitment, lessons taken out of a package need 5 days’ notice.

With five days’ notice the hours go straight back into your balance. Inside five days the lesson is charged in full, and the discount is affected — see below.

Intensive courses — 2 weeks

An intensive course needs 2 weeks’ notice. During a course we clear our diary of other lessons and obligations, and we book the earliest theory and practical test dates we can get, so the commitment is made well before day one.

Cancel or postpone with at least two weeks’ notice and we will move you to another course date. Inside two weeks the course fee remains payable in full, because the time can no longer be sold to anyone else. Test fees already paid to the DVSA are separate and subject to their rules, not ours.

Cancelling during a discounted package

This is the part worth reading twice. A package price is not a smaller price for the same thing — it is a lower hourly rate bought with a commitment to the whole block.

If you cancel a lesson late, or cancel out of a package part way through, that commitment no longer holds, and you become liable for the full, undiscounted amount. In practice that means the hours you have already taken are re-charged at our standard single-lesson rate of £45 an hour, and the difference between that and what you have paid becomes payable. Hours you have not yet taken are not charged for.

A worked example: on the 10 hour package you pay £385 for ten hours. If you have taken nine of them and then cancel late, those nine hours are re-priced at £45 — £405 — so £20 is still owed rather than an hour being refunded. Cancelling earlier in the block, where the standard-rate value of the hours taken is still less than you have paid, leaves nothing further to pay.

The same principle applies to an intensive course, where the whole course fee is the committed amount.

If we have to cancel

Occasionally we are the ones who have to move a lesson — illness, a car off the road, or weather that makes driving genuinely unsafe. If that happens we tell you as soon as we know, nothing is charged, nothing comes off your prepaid hours, and we prioritise getting you back in the diary quickly.

Things we will always look at

None of the above is meant to catch anybody out. If something serious happens — illness, a bereavement, an emergency at home — tell us as early as you can and we will do what we reasonably can to help. What we cannot do is absorb repeated late cancellations, because the slot has already been turned down by someone else.

If you are unsure how the policy applies to your booking, ask before you book rather than after. Call 07572 245085 and we will tell you straight.