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UK town with most personal plates revealed11-Mar-2015

A new survey has revealed that a town in Moray, in north-eastern Scotland, has the highest percentage of motorists with a personalised registration plate in the UK.

Over a quarter of motorists in Buckie have been found to have private number plates, while the towns of Fraserburgh and Turriff also top the league in a new table put together by a leading insurance provider. 

According to the poll, 26% of the people in Buckie are driving around with their own number plates, followed by Banff, Turriff and Fraserburgh. 

Some 23% of motorists in Aberdeen, Westhill and Wick have personal registration plates, compared with under 2% in Cambridge and exactly 2% in Shetland. 

Among those most likely to have personal plates on their cars were property developers, oil workers and landlords. 

The research was based on information from three million of the insurer’s customers. It also found that those who owned “prestigious” marques, such as the Range Rover Vogue, the Porsche 911 Turbo and the Bentley Continental GT, were more likely to go private with their number plates. 

A spokesman for the insurance provider said: “Self-employed people dominate the list of occupations most likely to drive cars with personalised plates. Perhaps this is because of the status of these plates, and perhaps that is important to those working in these occupations.” 

Among those least likely to drive vehicles with individual registration were ecologists, physicists and journalists. The spokesperson suggested: “Perhaps people who do these jobs just prefer the anonymity offered by a regular number plate.” 

According to the DVLA, more than £2 billion in tax has been raised at number plate auctions UK-wide over the last quarter of a century. 

Recently, the much heralded ‘250 C’ plate was auctioned and expected to fetch half a million, but in the end, was sold for £21,500 (its estimated value had been based on the Ferrari classic 250 GT California). 

The most expensive number plate ever sold in the UK was the ‘25 0’ plate, which fetched £518,000 in 2014 when it was bought by a Ferrari dealer.

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