Banbury driving test centre
Suite 008 and 009, Colin Sanders Innovation Centre, Mewburn Road, Banbury, OX16 9PA
Drive the 5 routes around Banbury before test day →
Key facts
- Banbury's pass rate was 41.3% in 2025/26 from 9,069 tests, 8.7 points below the national average of 50.0%.
- That puts it 30 of 30 centres in South East (South East average 52.9%), one of the lower pass rates in the region, 11.6 points below it.
- Since 2021/22 the pass rate has fallen by 4.7 points, from 46% to 41.3%.
- On waiting times, learners who took a test in August 2026 had waited a median of 18.1 weeks since booking (longer than the national median of 11.9 weeks); the first week with 10% or more of slots still free was 24 weeks ahead.
- A year earlier (August 2025) the median wait was 16 weeks, so waits have grown by about 2.1 weeks.
- 34.9% of the standard slots in the booking window were still unbooked in August 2026, which usually means a cancellation or new date is realistic here.
Banbury sets two different tests in the same hour. Half of it runs through the estates north and west of the town, where Ruscote Avenue, Woodgreen Avenue, Queensway and Kingsway are joined to one another by roundabouts and broken up by traffic calming. The other half drops into the old market town, where South Bar, West Bar, Castle Street and the High Street are narrower, busier and full of people crossing. The practice loops on this page carry four zebra crossings as well as ten signalled ones, and it is the zebras that catch people out, because nothing on them tells you when to stop. Among the thirty centres in the South East, Banbury has the lowest pass rate, and the figure has been drifting down rather than steadying.
Drive the Banbury test routes before test day
5 loops from the centre, 55 km in all, with 42 roundabouts and 132 marked turns. Generated from the road network within 2.5 km of Banbury; not DVSA’s own routes, but the same roads.
Drive it before test day
Drive all 5 loops around Banbury from your phone before you ever sit in the car: every roundabout, every junction, in the order you will meet them.
- 5 routes · 55 km · 132 marked turns
- Examiner-style marking on signalling and observation
- Street View tour of each route
- Every roundabout and junction, in the order you'll meet them
- The four test manoeuvres and eight roundabout scenarios, included
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- Route 1 · via Bloxham Road11.4 km loop with 11 roundabouts, 8 right turns, 14 left turns and a stretch of Woodgreen Avenue.11.4 km · 33 turns · 11 roundabouts
- Route 2 · via Bloxham Road12.5 km loop with 11 roundabouts, 7 right turns, 11 left turns and a stretch of Warwick Road.12.5 km · 29 turns · 11 roundabouts
- Route 3 · via Longelandes Way11.6 km loop with 10 roundabouts, 4 right turns, 9 left turns and a stretch of Ruscote Avenue.11.6 km · 23 turns · 10 roundabouts
- Route 4 · via Bloxham Road9.3 km loop with 5 roundabouts, 10 right turns, 10 left turns and a stretch of Queensway.9.3 km · 25 turns · 5 roundabouts
- Route 5 · via Bloxham Road10.4 km loop with 5 roundabouts, 7 right turns, 10 left turns and a stretch of Mewburn Road.10.4 km · 22 turns · 5 roundabouts
The same access also opens the four test manoeuvres and eight roundabout scenarios: the two things a route drive cannot teach you.
Roundabouts are the structure of a Banbury test rather than an incident in it. The practice loops on this page name eighteen roundabout locations and two mini-roundabouts, and the streets the routes keep returning to are Bloxham Road, Warwick Road, Woodgreen Avenue, Ruscote Avenue and Queensway. The heaviest of the five loops covers 11.4 km and takes in eleven roundabouts, with eight right turns and fourteen left. The lightest covers 9.3 km and still has five.
Set against that, ordinary give-way junctions barely appear. There are two on the whole set of loops, against twenty-one sets of traffic signals. Almost every decision on the drive is taken either at a roundabout or at a light, which changes what the examiner ends up marking. Lane choice and approach speed come round again and again. The patient creep up to a give-way line hardly comes up at all.
The speeds are ordinary for a market town. About 68 per cent of the loop length is 30 mph and 22 per cent is 20, with twenty-nine traffic calming features spread across it. Nine per cent is 40 mph, which is where the A361 and a stretch of dual carriageway come in. There is faster driving here, but not much of it.
Two things are worth practising specifically. Zebra crossings, because four sit on the loops and none of them tells you what to do with a light. And roundabouts in series, where the exit of one is the approach to the next and there is no quiet stretch in between to reset.
Twenty-two schools sit in the area around the centre, so an afternoon slot can bring a school run with it.
Waiting time for a test at Banbury
Median weeks between booking and taking the test, for tests taken each month. Dashed line: GB median for August 2026.
| Month | Median wait | Weeks to free slots | Slots offered | Still free |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Aug 2026 | 18.1 | 24 | 45 | 34.9% |
| Jul 2026 | 18.1 | 24 | 36 | 45.6% |
| Jun 2026 | 20.4 | 24 | 25 | 49% |
| May 2026 | 24.3 | 14 | 11 | 61.2% |
| Apr 2026 | 20.9 | 17.5 | 18 | 49.8% |
| Mar 2026 | 20.4 | 24 | 26 | 49.3% |
Pass rate at Banbury, 2007/08 to 2025/26
Share of car tests passed each April-to-March year. Dashed line: Great Britain average for 2025/26.
Month by month, 2025/26
By year and gender
| Year | Tests | Pass rate | Male | Female |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2025/26 | 9,069 | 41.3% | 40.8% | 41.7% |
| 2024/25 | 8,241 | 39.9% | 39.2% | 40.8% |
| 2023/24 | 6,679 | 40.8% | 40.4% | 41.3% |
| 2022/23 | 6,747 | 43.5% | 44.4% | 42.5% |
| 2021/22 | 6,265 | 46.0% | 47.1% | 44.9% |
| 2020/21 | 1,631 | 55.5% | 56.3% | 54.7% |
| 2019/20 | 5,264 | 50.2% | 50.7% | 49.7% |
| 2018/19 | 5,005 | 52.3% | 55.9% | 48.9% |
South East average 52.9% · GB 50%
Tell me when the wait at Banbury drops
One email when DVSA’s monthly figure falls, or goes under the number of weeks you choose. No newsletter.
Test day at Banbury
Put OX16 9PG into the sat nav rather than the OX16 9PA on your booking. DVSA names the second postcode as the one map apps get right. The centre itself is two suites, 008 and 009, inside the Colin Sanders Innovation Centre on Mewburn Road, so you are looking for the right door within a larger building.
Do not turn up early. DVSA asks candidates here not to arrive more than ten minutes before the start time, so plan the journey to finish with the waiting already done somewhere else. Parking at a unit of this kind is shared with whoever else works on the site rather than set aside for candidates, so treat a space by the entrance as luck rather than a plan. Banbury station is about a mile and a half away.
Access into the building is single stepped. DVSA will make arrangements for candidates with a disability, which means ringing ahead rather than turning up and asking.
The centre runs car tests, motorcycle module 2 on the road, and ADI part 3. The examiner calls your name, checks your licence and takes the insurance declaration, and the eyesight check is done outside. Booking, moving and cancelling is only through GOV.UK, and the wait here has lately been running at around eighteen weeks.
What DVSA publishes about Banbury
Taken from the GOV.UK test centre finder, checked 3 September 2026. Where DVSA says nothing, this site says nothing.
- Tests conducted here
- carmotorcycle module 2 (on-road)ADI part 3
- Wheelchair access
- Not published. DVSA says it will make arrangements for candidates with a disability, which is not the same as step-free access. Ring DVSA before the day rather than assuming.
- On the day
- has single stepped access. If using a map app or sat nav, use OX16 9PG. Please do not arrive for your test more than 10 minutes before the start time.
Other tests at Banbury
This centre is not car only. DVSA publishes results for these categories separately, and they are taken by different candidates on different vehicles, so the rates are not comparable with the car figure above.
Learner reports from Banbury
No reports yet for this centre. If you tested here, the first one is yours to write.
What examiners mark most often
DVSA does not publish faults by centre, but it does publish them nationally. These collected the most marks across every car test in Great Britain in 2025/26, and they are the same ones you will be marked on at Banbury.
- 1Junctions - observation
- 2Mirrors - change direction
- 3Junctions - turning right
- 4Response to signs - traffic lights
- 5Control - steering
- 6Move off - safely
Getting there
Suite 008 and 009, Colin Sanders Innovation Centre, Mewburn RoadBanbury OX16 9PA
Directions in Google Maps · Check centre notes on GOV.UK
Nearby centres
- Warwick (Wedgenock House)Warwick · CV34 5AP · 31 km48.5%-1.5 vs GB18 wkswait
- RugbyCV22 7DH · 35 km51.4%+1.4 vs GB9.4 wkswait
- Oxford (Cowley)Oxford · OX4 2PY · 37 km50.6%+0.6 vs GB5 wkswait
- NorthamptonNN5 7QA · 37 km52.1%+2.1 vs GB7.9 wkswait
Questions learners ask about Banbury
- Is Banbury an easy test centre?
- Its 41.3% pass rate in 2025/26 is below the 50.0% national average. Busy urban roads and complex junctions usually explain lower rates; knowing the local routes closes most of that gap.
- How long is the wait for a driving test at Banbury?
- In August 2026 the median gap between booking and sitting a test at Banbury was 18.1 weeks, and you had to look about 24 weeks ahead to find a week with at least 10% of slots free. DVSA publishes this monthly; the figure above updates when they do.
- Where is Banbury driving test centre?
- Banbury test centre is at Suite 008 and 009, Colin Sanders Innovation Centre, Mewburn Road, Banbury, OX16 9PA. Arrive at least 10 minutes early with your provisional licence; parking rules vary by centre, so check the learner reports below.
- How many driving tests does Banbury do a year?
- 9,069 car tests were conducted at Banbury in 2025/26, of which 3,741 were passed.
Source: DVSA tables DRT122A (pass rates by centre and month) and DRT122F (waiting times and availability), Open Government Licence v3.0. PassRank adds the comparisons and rankings.
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