St Helens driving test centre
DVSA name: St Helens (Liverpool) · 1 Navigation Road, off Pocket Nook Street, St Helens, Liverpool, WA9 1NS
Drive the 5 routes around St Helens before test day →
Key facts
- St Helens's pass rate was 40.9% in 2025/26 from 14,174 tests, 9.1 points below the national average of 50.0%.
- That puts it 29 of 31 centres in North West (North West average 49.0%), one of the lower pass rates in the region, 8.1 points below it.
- Since 2021/22 the pass rate has fallen by 3.7 points, from 44.6% to 40.9%.
- Male candidates passed at 39.5% and female candidates at 43.5%, a gap of 4 points.
- On waiting times, learners who took a test in August 2026 had waited a median of 6.6 weeks since booking (shorter than the national median of 11.9 weeks); the first week with 10% or more of slots still free was 13.2 weeks ahead.
St Helens is a high-volume centre with a low pass rate. More than 14,000 tests a year go through Navigation Road, a heavy workload for a single centre, and the pass rate of just under 41 per cent puts it 286th of 302 centres nationally. It has drifted down rather than up since 2021. The compensation is availability: the median wait is under seven weeks and more than a third of the slots in the booking window were still unbooked, so a date, or a better date, is realistic here in a way it is not at most centres. The driving is ordinary northern-town driving, which is precisely the problem. Nothing about it is dramatic enough to make you concentrate.
Drive the St Helens test routes before test day
5 loops from the centre, 55 km in all, with 14 roundabouts and 104 marked turns. Generated from the road network within 2.5 km of St Helens; not DVSA’s own routes, but the same roads.
Drive it before test day
Drive all 5 loops around St Helens 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 · 104 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 Sutton Road10.4 km loop with 7 roundabouts, 8 right turns, 7 left turns and a stretch of Jackson Street.10.4 km · 22 turns · 7 roundabouts
- Route 2 · via Woodlands Road10.3 km loop with 4 roundabouts, 12 right turns, 5 left turns and a stretch of Hinckley Road.10.3 km · 21 turns · 4 roundabouts
- Route 3 · via Carr Mill Road12.2 km loop with 1 roundabout, 7 right turns, 11 left turns and a stretch of Chain Lane.12.2 km · 19 turns · 1 roundabout
- Route 4 · via Jackson Street11.6 km loop with 2 roundabouts, 11 right turns, 11 left turns and a stretch of Park Road.11.6 km · 24 turns · 2 roundabouts
- Route 5 · via Standish Street10.4 km loop with 10 right turns, 8 left turns and a stretch of Hinckley Road.10.4 km · 18 turns
The same access also opens the four test manoeuvres and eight roundabout scenarios: the two things a route drive cannot teach you.
The first minutes are the tightest. Pocket Nook Street, Navigation Road and Higher Parr Street sit in the older industrial quarter close to the town centre, narrow, busy and full of side turnings, and the test starts there before you have settled.
From there the routes spread into the residential town. Around three fifths of the roads mapped within 2.5 km are 30 limits and nearly three tenths are 20, so the pattern is a steady alternation between the two rather than any long run at one speed. Parr Street, College Street, Sutton Road and Blackbrook Road carry most of that. Parked cars reduce them to a single working lane in places, and meeting oncoming traffic properly, deciding early who goes and then committing, is marked as much as anything else on this test.
Junction density is the real story. There are 76 signalled junctions and 18 mini-roundabouts within 2.5 km, alongside six named roundabouts including Peasley Cross, Sherdley and Cannington. The loops on this page vary a lot in how much of that they take in: one has seven roundabout entries in 10.4 kilometres, another has none at all across 10.4 kilometres of the same town.
Carr Mill Road, Laffak Road and Linkway West give the faster edge, where the limits are higher and the traffic moves. With 28 schools in the area, an afternoon slot is likely to meet one.
Manoeuvres tend to be set on the quieter residential streets, where kerbs are straight and one side is parked solidly enough for a pull-up on the right to be worth the examiner's while.
Pass rate at St Helens, 2008/09 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 | 14,174 | 40.9% | 39.5% | 43.5% |
| 2024/25 | 9,776 | 40.2% | 39.0% | 41.9% |
| 2023/24 | 9,718 | 38.6% | 38.6% | 38.6% |
| 2022/23 | 8,292 | 38.2% | 38.9% | 37.5% |
| 2021/22 | 7,422 | 44.6% | 45.2% | 43.8% |
| 2020/21 | 2,215 | 47.5% | 48.8% | 46.0% |
| 2019/20 | 5,971 | 45.7% | 48.7% | 42.7% |
| 2018/19 | 5,697 | 48.4% | 53.0% | 44.3% |
North West average 49% · GB 50%
Waiting time for a test at St Helens
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 | 6.6 | 13.2 | 48 | 5.6% |
| Jul 2026 | 6.6 | 13.5 | 52 | 5.9% |
| Jun 2026 | 6.4 | 14.8 | 53 | 6.3% |
| May 2026 | 6.1 | 16.5 | 54 | 5.9% |
| Apr 2026 | 7 | 17.8 | 51 | 7.2% |
| Mar 2026 | 5.3 | 16.8 | 59 | 4.8% |
Tell me when the wait at St Helens drops
One email when DVSA’s monthly figure falls, or goes under the number of weeks you choose. No newsletter.
Test day at St Helens
The arrival is worth reading twice, because DVSA publishes an instruction for this centre. Candidates drive past the main fitness complex and use the last unit on the left. You do not go into the main complex. The car park is large with no marked bays, and DVSA asks you to use the spaces nearest that last unit rather than parking wherever there is room.
The address is 1 Navigation Road, off Pocket Nook Street. St Helens Central station is about 800 metres away, so arriving by train is straightforward if your instructor is meeting you there.
The centre takes car tests, motorcycle modules 1 and 2, and ADI parts 2 and 3, so the car park often has more than cars in it. Nothing is published about step-free access or the waiting room. If either matters to you, ring the centre and ask rather than assume.
Arrive about ten minutes before your slot. The examiner calls you by name, checks your licence and takes the signed declaration that the car is insured for the test. The eyesight check is done outside before you get in. Booking, moving and cancelling all go through GOV.UK, and with availability as loose as it is here, moving a test you are not ready for is a real option.
What DVSA publishes about St Helens
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 1 (off-road)motorcycle module 2 (on-road)ADI part 2ADI part 3
- Wheelchair access
- Not published. Ring DVSA before the day rather than assuming.
- On the day
- Candidates are to drive past the main fitness complex and use the last unit to the left. They are not required to enter the main complex. Please try to use the spaces closest to the last unit on the left as the car park is large with no designated bays.
Other tests at St Helens
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 St Helens
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 St Helens.
- 1Junctions - observation
- 2Mirrors - change direction
- 3Junctions - turning right
- 4Response to signs - traffic lights
- 5Control - steering
- 6Move off - safely
Getting there
1 Navigation Road, off Pocket Nook Street, St HelensLiverpool WA9 1NS
Directions in Google Maps · Check centre notes on GOV.UK
Nearby centres
- WarringtonWA2 9EP · 11 km55.5%+5.5 vs GB10.6 wkswait
- Widnes (Liverpool)Widnes · WA8 8PT · 11 km42.7%-7.3 vs GB6.9 wkswait
- Norris Green (Liverpool)Norris Green · L11 5BR · 14 km37.8%-12.2 vs GB15.3 wkswait
- Speke (Liverpool)Liverpool · L19 2QR · 16 km40.5%-9.5 vs GB8.3 wkswait
- Atherton (Manchester)Manchester · M46 0SU · 16 km44.3%-5.7 vs GB15.3 wkswait
- WallaseyCH44 8AT · 21 km54.3%+4.3 vs GB20.5 wkswait
Questions learners ask about St Helens
- Is St Helens an easy test centre?
- Its 40.9% 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 St Helens?
- In August 2026 the median gap between booking and sitting a test at St Helens was 6.6 weeks, and you had to look about 13.2 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 St Helens driving test centre?
- St Helens test centre is at 1 Navigation Road, off Pocket Nook Street, St Helens, Liverpool, WA9 1NS. 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 St Helens do a year?
- 14,174 car tests were conducted at St Helens in 2025/26, of which 5,803 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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