1.September
Category B – evenings and weekends
Tuesdays 5pm · 22 Newgate Street, Bishop Auckland
places left: 4 z 16theory support Tue & Thu
✓ matches what you picked
Lessons seven days a week · refresher lessons after you pass too
We will teach you to drive where it is uphill
A driving school in Bishop Auckland. Car, motorbike, lorry and trailer, lessons on the moor roads and on the A1(M) — and an instructor who will do the hill start on Cockton Hill as many times as it takes.
1994teaching people to drive since
2,340pupils passed
5cars and bikes we teach in
16on an intensive course, no more
Lessons before six in the morning
We will find a time that suits you. We are out from 6am to 8pm, Saturdays included.
Our own off-road area
A disused yard at Tindale Crescent, ours alone. You can stall on a hill start with nobody watching.
Nothing gets added on
The price on the list is the price. Mock tests, the theory app and picking you up from home are all in it.
Pay in instalments
Up to three payments costs you nothing extra. Six or ten payments add 2 % or 4 %.
Compare the categories
What a licence costs. To the pound.
Pick a category, say whether you want to pay in instalments, and add extra hours if you think you will want them. You get what you pay us and what you pay DVSA — those test fees are not ours and plenty of schools keep quiet about them.
Category B — car
a car up to 3.5 t, trailer up to 750 kg
You would pay
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The categories side by side
| Category | What it lets you drive | Minimum age | Theory | Hours | Block price | Put it in the calculator |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bcar | a car up to 3.5 t and a 750 kg trailer | 17 | 32 h | 28 h | £1,539 | |
| A1small motorbike | a motorbike up to 125 cm³ and 11 kW | 17 | 26 h | 13 h | £589 | |
| Amotorbike | a motorbike of any power | 24 (21 through A2) | 26 h | 13 h | £817 | |
| Clorry | a lorry over 3.5 t | 18 with a Driver CPC | 38 h | 21 h | £2,080 | |
| Etrailer | a trailer over 750 kg behind a car | 17, and a car licence | 10 h | 6 h | £451 |
We do A2 (a bike up to 35 kW) and Driver CPC as well, they are just not in the calculator — ring us and we will price them.
The next intensive courses
Five dates with places left
The numbers are the real state of the diary. A course runs once six people are on it; if it does not fill, everybody moves to the next date rather than waiting in the dark.
10.September
Categories A and A1 – motorbikes
Thursdays 5.30pm · 22 Newgate Street, Bishop Auckland
places left: 6 z 10lessons from mid September
✓ matches what you picked
21.September
Category B – Crook
Mondays 5pm · 14 Hope Street, Crook
places left: 11 of 16theory support Mon & Wed
✓ matches what you picked
26.September
Category B+E – weekend course
Saturdays 8am · two weekends, Tindale Crescent yard
places left: 5 z 8done in a fortnight
✓ matches what you picked
7.October
Category C – lorry
Wednesdays 4pm · 22 Newgate Street, Bishop Auckland
places left: 3 z 8can be taken with Driver CPC
✓ matches what you picked
You can join a fortnight late — anything you have missed we go through one to one, at no extra cost. If the evening sessions never suit, the whole theory side is online.
How it works
From first lesson to full licence, in six steps
A car licence usually takes two to four months here. In a hurry it can be done in six weeks — but the hours have to come out of your diary, not ours.
Provisional licence
Apply to DVLA online for a provisional; it costs £34 and takes about a week. You need to be 17, and to read a number plate at twenty metres. No medical for a car licence.
about 20 minutesFirst lesson
We pick you up from home, find somewhere quiet and get you moving in the first hour. You also get the theory app and the hazard perception clips the same day.
first weekThe off-road area
Hill starts, reversing and parking at Tindale Crescent before you meet other traffic. Some people need two hours of it, some five — it is not charged separately.
weeks 2–3Out on the road
Town, the moor roads to Stanhope, the dual carriageway and twice on the A1(M). We drive the test routes but we do not learn them by heart — the examiner will send you somewhere else anyway.
6–12 weeksMock test
A week before, you do a full mock with a different instructor from your own. A stranger in the passenger seat is exactly what decides the real thing.
a week beforeTest day
The theory goes first, at the test centre in Darlington. The practical is forty minutes with an examiner, and the full licence lands about three weeks later.
about 3 weeks
About us
A small school where people know your name
We started in 1994 in one room above what was then the post office. There are two rooms now, five vehicles and four instructors — and we deliberately leave it there. You get one instructor from the first lesson to the test, somebody who knows which bit you find hard.
We take at most sixteen on an intensive course. With five vehicles, any more and somebody waits a month between lessons — and waiting is the quickest way to forget what you learned.
Every instructor here is a DVSA Approved Driving Instructor with a green badge — you can ask to see it, and you should. Company number 00000000, not VAT registered, so the prices shown are the prices.
Who teaches you
The owner
Owner · B, C and B+E
Before opening the school in 1994 I drove a fire appliance for ten years. That is where the habit comes from of working out what could go wrong before it does.
The office
Bookings · first aid sessions
Twenty years as a theatre nurse at the hospital. First aid here is not an hour to sit through — everybody does chest compressions on the dummy, including the ones who would rather not.
Motorbikes
Instructor · A and A1
I have been on bikes since I was twelve. We ride the moor roads above Stanhope, because anybody who can hold a line up there will not be troubled by Newcastle.
Refresher lessons
Instructor · category B
I take the people who are frightened of driving or coming back to it after years off. I do not shout, I do not grab the wheel, and I am not in a hurry.
What you learn in
Five vehicles, each for a reason
We do not change cars because something newer came out. A Corsa because you can see out of it and it forgives you. A Golf so that a longer car does not catch you out on test day. And the lorry because air brakes cannot be learned off a video.
- every vehicle has dual controls and a full service history,
- you can have the automatic for the first lessons if you ask,
- helmet, gloves and armour are lent free with the bikes,
- we pick you up anywhere in Bishop Auckland and six miles round it.
What to expect
Three things worth asking any driving school
Ask to see the badge. A green badge means a fully qualified ADI. A pink one means a trainee — which is legal, and can be perfectly good, but you are entitled to know which one is sitting beside you.
Nobody can promise you a pass. The national first-time pass rate sits around half. Anybody guaranteeing a result is selling you something they do not control — the examiner does.
Ask what happens to unused hours. If you buy a block and pass early, or move away, you should get the rest back. Ours are refunded, minus nothing, and that is in writing before you pay.
Get in touch
Come and ask, or just ring
The phone is quickest — we answer it between lessons. The form gets read in the evening and answered by the next day.
Office and classroom
22 Newgate Street, Bishop Auckland DL14 7EH
Second room: 14 Hope Street, Crook DL15 9HU
Off-road area: the old yard, Tindale Crescent
Phone
01632 960133
Mon–Fri 8am–7pm, Sat 9am–12pm
Email
hello@bishopgatedriving.co.uk
We normally answer within 24 hours.
When somebody is in the office
Mondays and Wednesdays 3pm–6pm
Any other time by arrangement — we live round the corner.
Book a place
Fill in what you know. The rest we sort out on the phone — nothing is signed until you are sitting in the office.