I live devon and got my fac in febuary which was a closed ticket , in may i put in for a variation as wanted a .17 hmr and another .22 lr which was granted within a week , when i was reading the ticket had noticed that i now had an open ticket to my surprise , just to make sure i aqquired some land the week after and sent in a land form the next day i had a answer machine message saying i didnt need it checked as i had an open ticket and was up to me to decide if it was safe to shoot. So dont really know how they decide who gets one as only had my fac for 3 months.