Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, how many applications for van to motor caravan conversions have been made in last five years; and how many of those applications have been turned down and for what reasons.

The table below shows the number of accepted and rejected applications to change a vehicle’s body type from van to motor caravan. Information on the reason for refusal would incur disproportionate costs to gather, as each case would need to be interrogated to establish the reason. Information on the volume of rejected applications has only been stored since July 2016.

The DVLA emphasises that even if the body type is unable to be changed to “motor caravan”, vehicle keepers are still able to use the vehicle for this purpose, provided any alterations made to the vehicle do not compromise its safety.