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A Dickensian View
09 January 2019 11:21


The government’s panic measures for a no-deal Brexit this week have included contingency planning for “what happens if we can’t get the trucks through the ports quickly enough”. This involved a fleet of trucks driving round Kent on Monday. This didn’t concern me greatly as I don’t live in Kent. However, local worst-case scenario plans include closing a section of the M3 motorway to use as a twelve-mile long truck stop. This does affect as, although I don’t regularly drive along that section of motorway, I do travel close enough to be affected by the resulting road chaos.

The local news last night carefully explained that there are only thirteen truck-lengths between the gate to Portsmouth port and the motorway, so more than thirteen trucks waiting would cause a blockage. So, er, why not move the gate further in? Or forget about the gate altogether; let the trucks park up inside the port and check them there?

Two things I don’t understand about all this.

Firstly, the customs-free border between the UK and the rest of Europe has not been there for that long. It’s not nearly as old as the EU. I can remember (in my adult lifetime) having customs checks and import allowances (and duty-free shops!). It didn’t cause major delays then, so why should it now?

Secondly, it’s all very well stacking the trucks on the motorway, an old airfield, or wherever. But how are they going to be unstacked? This isn’t a temporary problem caused by industrial action or bad weather, where the backlog can be filtered out over subsequent days. If on day one the ports receive 100 trucks more that they can handle, on day two they’ll receive another 100, then another and so on.

As Mr Micawber might have put it, were he alive today: “Port capacity 100 trucks, port demand 99 trucks; result happiness. Port capacity 100 trucks, port demand 101 trucks, result misery”.


*Another government measure has been to award a multi-million pound contract to a transport company that owns no trucks and no ships, and intends to use a port that hasn’t been used for several years.

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