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Car tax office in city centre

S

Susan Rudge

New Member
Hi does anyone know what road the car tax office was in the city centre we have been having a discussion on this at home someone said ooze street . Can anyone help or put me in the right direction please
 
Yes definitely, I remember going up to Oozells Street with my Dad one time he needed to renew his car tax.
 
Oozles Street, then the ground floor St Martins House at the end of Moor Street and then Edwards Street Ladywood, and finally I believe Granby Avenue Garretts Green the last one being the only one I never had the dubious pleasure of visiting.
 
think it was edward st ladywood i have been to with hubby this would be early 70s and in the days when you could stick a note on the windscreen saying " tax in the post" :rolleyes: :) which he frequently did even if it wasnt...

lyn
 
I remember going to Oozells Street with my husband and having to wait in a queue behind a car dealer who was taxing loads of vehicles.
When later we lived in Kingshurst we had to go to Warwick to tax the car.
 
It's all changed since the 1950s, I'm pretty sure then the tax office was in a big building on the end of Broad street, Easy Street somewhere behind the Hall of Memory, we used to queue six deep at the quarterly tax dates to get the cars taxed.
The same building was, I think, where the ration books were handed out during the war.
 
Eric Gibson said:
It's all changed since the 1950s, I'm pretty sure then the tax officell was in a big building on the end of Broad street, Easy Street somewhere behind the Hall of Memory, we used to queue six deep at the quarterly tax dates to get the cars taxed.
The same building was, I think, where the ration books were handed out during the war.
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Eric

Prior to Oozells Street The City Treasurers Motor Taxation Department was at the Civic Centre, 1 Broad Street. This is Baskerville House as we know it today, if as you say it was at the rear of the Hall of Memory then they probably used an entrance in Cambridge Street.
 
jmadone said:
Also used to issue driving licences from Oozells street. I remember getting my very first one, a red linen covered affair, there in 1966.
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UK civil driving licences were red originally but in the 1950's some were buff coloured. They reverted to red before becoming the paper version and now renewals are a plastic card with mugshot. HGV licences were dark blue when I had mine.
Car taxation was for three months in the 1950's, then becoming four monthly. I usually have gone for the year - less to remember! There are six monthly and direct debit options presently, but you pay dearly for that privilege.
 
I've got specimens of them all in my filing cabinet.
My first army (War department) licence was just a small bit of cardboard about 4" x 3" then the civvy ones a couple of the red ones and a couple of the buff ones before the paper ones became the norm.
 
Where the outdoor market was, there used to be a row of shops over looking the market, there was a row of shops and a couple of stand alone shops one may of been a florist was there not a office in the 70´s around this area ¿
 
I had a customer who was a Birmingham traffic cop, he said they could spot a Guinness label from a hundred yards away, it was an invitation to pinch the driver.

Better to have nothing in the window then they would have to find the driver and ask him in case the disc had just fallen off.

That was of course before the advent of ANPR and the DVLA online computer records.
 
I remember Oozells Street so well...in the 1960's I worked for Arnold Genders in Kings Heath and that was part of Colmore Depot....often for new vehicles I would have to go to the car tax office in Oozells street to get the tax and often light commercials I took for weighing as they had a weighbridge there........ normal number plates we got from a Snow Hill number plate maker outlet.....happy days !!!!
 
mikeflan said:
I remember Oozells Street so well...in the 1960's I worked for Arnold Genders in Kings Heath and that was part of Colmore Depot....often for new vehicles I would have to go to the car tax office in Oozells street to get the tax and often light commercials I took for weighing as they had a weighbridge there........ normal number plates we got from a Snow Hill number plate maker outlet.....happy days !!!!
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Wow I had not thought about Arnold Genders in 45+ years, but I have thought about Thomas Startins in Aston I use to call there all the time when I worked for PMG on Dawlish Road and chat up the girl who answered the phone never meet her but she had a sexy voice
 
I remember Oozles Street car tax office too. My recollections are of it being a bureaucratic heaven, for the people who worked there at least. Of course, I am bias. I was one of those people who always let my tax run out, under the misconception that there was 14 days grace.

It meant that you had to go into Oozles Street office and queue at one window for the proper form to fill in. They queue at another window to have the aforesaid form checked.

Then another queue to the window to pay the fee.

You then waited round by the counter near the foyer for a guy to come out, call out your name and stamp the tax disk. If you missed him, he shot off and you had to wait again for the next set of tax discs.

I am sure you could buy, three/four, six- or twelve-months tax?

On a good day, taxing my motor bike, a triumph tiger cub would only take about three hours.

Oozles Street was always littered with the perforated outer edges of the tax discs
 
Susan Rudge said:
Hi does anyone know what road the car tax office was in the city centre we have been having a discussion on this at home someone said ooze street . Can anyone help or put me in the right direction please
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It was Oozells Street off Broad Street, my first job when I left school was typing the front pages of the Driving Licences, the little Red book.
 
In Silverstone Auctions they are selling the 1904 Birmingham Registration O9
The ninth Number issued in Birmingham as they started in 1904.
I am sure it will sell for a not inconsiderable sum.
www.silverstoneauctions.com

Registration Number O9

Dating from 1904 and first time on the market in over 70 years.
www.silverstoneauctions.com www.silverstoneauctions.com
The write up on the website is interesting, in my opinion, wrong but interesting all the same.
It seems that the vendors father worked at the tax office in 1949 and obtained it as the plate was returned off a scrap car!
The auctioneer seems to think the office was in Mosely (SIC) I have written to him and suggested Oozells Street and as an ex pupil of Moseley Grammar, I have mentioned his spelling!
How much time did we spend queueing at Oozells Street?
The staff only became extra helpful in the last year of Granby Avenue when they were under threat of closure.
A great loss to the area!
 
My first job on leaving school was Shorthand Typist in Motor Taxation Office, Oozells Street. I had never been further than the Town Hall before thought I would never find my way home. I also typed the driving licences that went into those little Red Driving licence books. The worst part of that job was having to file the copies into the filing cabinets, there were just millions of little bits of Pink paper.
 
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