05 June 2018

Financial Times: Logistics industry says ‘too late’ to avoid Brexit disruption

Britain’s logistics industry lost patience with the government, with lorry drivers saying their confidence in a well-managed Brexit is collapsing and the Channel tunnel warning it was “too late” to avoid serious disruption when the UK leaves the EU next March.

With Westminster convulsed by arguments over the future of the UK’s borders the logistics industry hit out at ministers and officials for having no plan for how their operations are supposed to function in the future.

The Freight Transport Association said “the industry’s frustration with the lack of progress is building daily” as logistics companies were unable to price for the period after March 2019 or answer basic questions from customers.

James Hookham, deputy chief executive, complained that some parts of government simply dismissed their concerns as trivial. “This is a reckless attitude to take and is playing chicken with parts of the British economy and the livelihoods of the seven million Britons in the industry.”

John Keefe, public affairs director of Getlink, the company which runs the Channel tunnel, warned against any solution that did not involve smart border technology away from the congested area of Dover, which he said was “essential to ensuring that frictionless trade can be maintained”.

“Delivering this level of sophistication will be a complex and lengthy process and it is already too late to envisage it being in place in March 2019,” he told MPs in evidence to parliament.

The Port of Dover has previously warned that, such is the level of traffic through the port that a delay of only two minutes for each truck would create a 17-mile tailback of lorries

No progress on freight concerns

The FTA has been explaining its problems to government in private but it lost patience at the weekend when officials failed to respond as promised to the many issues that concerned its members.

“Of the eight demands in FTA’s list of essentials to ‘Keep Britain Trading’ . . . not a single one has been progressed,” Mr Hookham said. [...]

Full article on Financial Times (subscription required)

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