I booked in a test car while learning the app. Can I delete it?

Not in BreakerHQ, and we would not advise it anywhere. The Environment Agency says an ELV tracking system "must hold all the information generated during" acceptance and the rest, and that it "must be readily accessible". A record that vanishes is a gap an inspector cannot read. Archive it instead: the record stays, marked recorded in error with the reason and the date, and it leaves the working lists, the site register and the evidence pack tables.

Who can archive a vehicle in BreakerHQ?

The yard owner or an admin, with a reason. Gate staff do not see the button. The archive and its undo are both written to the audit log in the name of the person who tapped, and the evidence pack lists every archived vehicle under a heading of its own, Recorded in error, so nothing is hidden from an inspector.

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5 October 2026

The test car you cannot delete. Why a record entered in error is archived, not removed, rejected or reported.

Q: Why not just reject the test car?

Because rejection means something. The Environment Agency requires you to "record any non-conformances" and to keep a written procedure for "recording, reporting and tracking non-conforming ELVs, including notifying the relevant customer". A test car marked rejected tells the inspector a real vehicle arrived, failed acceptance and a customer was told. None of that happened.

Q: Does a test car have to go to Defra?

No. The Digital Waste Tracking (England) Regulations 2026, regulation 4(1), apply "when the operator of a permitted facility receives controlled waste". A test car is not waste received, so there is nothing to report, and reporting it would put a false record on the government system.

Q: I already sent the test car to Defra. What now?

Then Defra holds a record with an error in it, and regulation 7(2) applies: the correct information must be entered "as soon as reasonably practicable and, in any event, within one month of the date on which the operator of a permitted facility becomes aware of the error". Correct it with Defra. BreakerHQ will not archive a vehicle Defra has been told about, because hiding it on your side would leave the two records disagreeing.

It is Monday 5 October 2026, the first night a car can be late, and the second row on your Vehicles list is a car that does not exist. You booked it in on Thursday while showing the lad how the app works. Reg off the top of your head, weight off the top of your head, supplier "me". The lad learned the app. The app learned a car. Now you want it gone, and two yards have asked us for exactly that inside a week, so here is why gone is the one thing it cannot be.

Why not delete it

Your permit already makes you keep an ELV tracking system, and the Environment Agency says what it must do. From section 3 of the appropriate measures: "Your ELV tracking system must hold all the information generated during: pre-acceptance, acceptance, non-conformance or rejection, storage, repackaging, treatment, removal off site. This information must be readily accessible." Acceptance records are kept "for a minimum of 2 years after you have treated the ELVs or removed them off site". Hold all of it, for years, and have it to hand. A delete button does the opposite of all three.

It also shows. Records are scored on their own at inspection, under a sub-criterion the Agency calls "Monitoring and records, maintenance and reporting", and the score feeds the compliance band your subsistence charge is set from. A receipt number that goes 41, 42, 44 is a question. The answer "we deleted a test car" is true and sounds like something else.

Why not reject it

Rejecting is the nearest button, and it is the wrong one, because rejection is a record with a meaning. The same section says "You must record any non-conformances" and asks for a written procedure for "recording, reporting and tracking non-conforming ELVs, including notifying the relevant customer". A rejected vehicle is a real car that arrived, failed your acceptance checks and went back out, with the customer told. Mark a test car rejected and your register of non-conformances now has one that never happened, with a reason that says "test". An inspector reading that register learns nothing true from it.

Why not send it to Defra and forget it

Regulation 4(1): "This regulation applies when the operator of a permitted facility receives controlled waste." A test car is not controlled waste received. There is no receipt to make, and making one puts a car on the government system that nobody can find on your yard.

If it has already gone, the regulation for that is the correction one. Regulation 7(2): the correct information must be entered "as soon as reasonably practicable and, in any event, within one month of the date on which the operator of a permitted facility becomes aware of the error". You became aware of it tonight. Correct it with Defra, and do not hide it on your side in the meantime, because then the two records disagree and the disagreement is the thing an inspector will find.

Four things you could do with Thursday’s test car, and what the file says afterwards.
What you do	What the record says	What the inspector sees
Delete it	Nothing. A gap where a record was.	A receipt number that skips, and no answer for why
Reject it	A non-conforming ELV, turned away, customer told	A non-conformance that never happened, on the register of non-conformances
Report it anyway	A waste receipt on Defra’s system for a car that was never waste	A Defra record and a yard that cannot show the car
Archive it, with the reason	The record, marked recorded in error, who, when and why	"Test car, archived Monday." Read it and move on

Archive it, with the reason on it

The record stays. It says, in its own words, that it was entered in error, who said so, when, and why. It leaves the working list, so the lad on the gate is not scrolling past it every morning. It leaves the site register, because it was never on site. It leaves the evidence pack’s receipt tables, because it was never a receipt, and the pack lists it on a page of its own instead, so the omission is written down rather than discovered. And it can be put back, with that tap recorded too, because every tap with legal weight needs an undo that leaves a trace.

What BreakerHQ does, and does not do

From today, an owner or admin opens the vehicle, taps Archive this vehicle, gives a reason, and confirms. Gate staff do not see the button. The Vehicles list hides archived records, and an Archived tick box shows only them, so one archived by mistake is found and restored. The site register, the evidence pack and the received-waste spreadsheet all leave it out, and the pack carries the page headed Recorded in error. Both taps go to the audit log in the name of the person who made them.

Two things it will not do. It will not archive a vehicle Defra or DVLA have been told about. If the receipt has gone to Defra, or the Certificate of Destruction has been applied for, the button is replaced by a sentence saying so, and the route is a correction with Defra. And it does not yet cover tyre or scrap loads booked in by mistake, which still go through us. We would rather say both than let the app quietly tidy a record the regulator holds.

Open the yard

The car from Thursday is still in the file. It says test car, archived Monday, by you. The lad learned the app, and the app has it in writing that the car was never there.