Portsmouth’s new Brexit border post could be demolished – without ever being used

Published

2 years ago

March 22, 2024

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A new £24m border control post may have to be demolished because repeated changes to post-Brexit border arrangements have left it commercially unviable.

The facility at Portsmouth International Port is due to begin physical checks on food and plant imports from the EU at the end of next month, but changes to border protocols since it was built mean half of the building will never be used.

Built with a £17m central government grant and £7m from Portsmouth City Council, which owns the port, it is designed to carry out checks on up to 80 truck loads of produce a day. The port now expects to process only four or five daily.

As a consequence, half of the 14 loading bays will never be used, and annual running costs of £800,000 a year will not be covered by the fees charged to importers for carrying out checks.

Portsmouth is not alone, with ports across the country puzzling over how to make the over-sized, over-specified buildings commissioned by the government pay for themselves with far less traffic.

The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs says it spent £200m part-funding new facilities to cope with post-Brexit border controls at 41 ports. It acknowledges that fewer checks will now be required and says ports are free to use spare capacity as they wish.

The problem in Portsmouth is that the facility, built for a very specific purpose inside a secure area, has no obvious commercial use, so the port is considering building a new, smaller facility, and decommissioning or even demolishing the existing building to make space for a commercially viable project.

“This was built to a Defra [Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs] specification when the border operating model was announced and it’s been mothballed for two years while the checks were delayed,” Mike Sellers, director of Portsmouth International Port and chairman of the British Ports Association, told Sky News.

“Now the border will be operating with far fewer checks, we are going to struggle to cover the running costs of around £800,000 a year.

“So we have to look to the future and work out what strategically is the best way to minimise the impact to the port and to the council.

“I know it sounds ironic, but that could be building another border control post much smaller than this facility, and looking to find commercial ways to get income either through this facility or to demolish it and use the operational land for something else.”

‘Total and absolute mess’

Port owner Portsmouth City Council meanwhile wants its £7m share of the £24m build cost reimbursed by the government.

“We as a council had to find £7m to help build this facility and now we’re on the fifth change of mind about how much inspection there will be. Half of this building is going to be left empty, idle, unused, and yet it’s costing council taxpayers of Portsmouth a great deal of money,” said councillor Gerald Vernon-Jones, transport lead for the council.

Were the Portsmouth facility to close it could impact the security of UK food imports, as the port is the main alternative route to Dover, providing much-needed resilience to a supply chain heavily reliant on the Short Straits route.

“It’s a total and absolute mess, we have an enormous white elephant here,” Mr Vernon-Jones said.

“If we can’t afford to keep port health people here all day, every day, to do those examinations then everything will have to come through Dover, and that’s enormously risky for this country. If Dover is closed for some reason, industrial action or whatever, then the whole country’s food is at ransom.”

The British Ports Association meanwhile has raised concerns with ministers about the preparedness of the new inspection regime at new border control posts (BCPs), due to be enforced in less than six weeks.

The trade body says ports have still not been told what hours BCPs will be required to open, or how many staff from two state inspection agencies will be required on site.

Crucially, they also do not know how much they will be able to charge importers for inspections because the government has not revealed what price it will levy at the wholly state-owned and run BCP at Sevington in Kent, 20 miles inland from Dover.

Given the dominance of Dover in UK food imports, the so-called common user charge will set the price for the rest of the market, but other ports still have no idea where to set fees.

Defra says it will inform the industry shortly of the fees it has determined following consultation.

The fate of the Portsmouth facility, obsolete before it has even opened, symbolises the delay and indecision around import controls since the Brexit deal came into force in January 2021.

While UK exports to the EU have faced border and customs controls since 1 January 2021, the UK government has delayed similar checks on EU imports five times and changed the control regime.

The original July 2021 deadline for physical checks of plant and animal produce was postponed because the BCPs were not ready, and further delays followed, with the government citing the impact on the food supply chain and the cost of living crisis.

In April 2022 the government announced a wholesale revision of its plans for the border, introducing a new risk-based approach that limits checks to certain high and medium-risk food and plant categories.

This was then delayed again, with a staged introduction finally beginning in January, with medium-risk food and plant imports requiring health certificates signed off by vets or plant health inspectors, followed by physical checks from 30 April.

Even with reduced checks on importsm the government’s own analysis suggests border controls will add £330m a year to the cost of trading with the continent and increase food inflation.

A spokesperson for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs said: “Our border control posts have sufficient capacity and capability, including for temperature controlled consignments, to handle the volume and type of expected checks and the authorities will be working to minimise disruption as these checks are introduced.”

Business

Budget 2025: Starmer and Reeves ditch plans to raise income tax

Published

59 mins ago

November 14, 2025

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Starmer and Reeves ditch plans to raise income tax in budget

Sir Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves have scrapped plans to break their manifesto pledge and raise income tax rates in a massive U-turn less than two weeks from the budget.

The decision, first reported in the Financial Times, comes after a bruising few days which has brought about a change of heart in Downing Street.

I understand Downing Street has backed down amid fears about the backlash from disgruntled MPs and voters.

The Treasury and Number 10 declined to comment.

The decision is a massive about-turn. In a news conference last week, the chancellor appeared to pave the way for manifesto-breaking tax rises in the budget on 26 November.

She spoke of difficult choices and insisted she could neither increase borrowing nor cut spending in order to stabilise the economy, telling the public “everyone has to play their part”.

The decision to backtrack was communicated to the Office for Budget Responsibility on Wednesday in a submission of “major measures”, according to the Financial Times.

The chancellor will now have to fill an estimated £30bn black hole with a series of narrower tax-raising measures and is also expected to freeze income tax thresholds for another two years beyond 2028, which should raise about £8bn.

Tory shadow business secretary Andrew Griffith said: “We’ve had the longest ever run-up to a budget, damaging the economy with uncertainty, and yet – with just days to go – it is clear there is chaos in No 10 and No 11.”

How did we get here?

For weeks, the government has been working up options to break the manifesto pledge not to raise income tax, national insurance or VAT on working people.

I was told only this week the option being worked up was to do a combination of tax rises and action on the two-child benefit cap in order for the prime minister to be able to argue that in breaking his manifesto pledges, he is trying his hardest to protect the poorest in society and those “working people” he has spoken of so endlessly.

But days ago, officials and ministers were working on a proposal to lift the basic rate of income tax – perhaps by 2p – and then simultaneously cut national insurance contributions for those on the basic rate of income tax (those who earn up to £50,000 a year).

That way the chancellor can raise several billion in tax from those with the “broadest shoulders” – higher-rate taxpayers and pensioners or landlords, while also trying to protect “working people” earning salaries under £50,000 a year.

The chancellor was also going to take action on the two-child benefit cap in response to growing demand from the party to take action on child poverty. It is unclear whether those plans will now be shelved given the U-turn on income tax.

A rough week for the PM

The change of plan comes after the prime minister found himself engulfed in a leadership crisis after his allies warned rivals that he would fight any attempted post-budget coup.

It triggered a briefing war between Wes Streeting and anonymous Starmer allies attacking the health secretary as the chief traitor.

The prime minister has since apologised to Mr Streeting, who I am told does not want to press for sackings in No 10 in the wake of the briefings against him.

But the saga has further damaged Sir Keir and increased concerns among MPs about his suitability to lead Labour into the next general election.

Insiders clearly concluded that the ill mood in the party, coupled with the recent hits to the PM’s political capital, makes manifesto-breaking tax rises simply too risky right now.

But it also adds to a sense of chaos, given the chancellor publicly pitch-rolled tax rises in last week’s news conference.

Business

‘Staggering’ 20-year fall in domestic UK flights – as another form of transport benefits

Published

59 mins ago

November 14, 2025

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'Staggering' 20-year fall in domestic UK flights - as another form of transport benefits

The number of domestic UK flights has more than halved over the past 20 years, even as global air travel continues to grow.

This month, another UK regional airline, Eastern Airways, officially went into administration as our appetite for flying internally continues its steady descent.

A total of 213,025 UK flights were scheduled in 2025, compared to a peak in 2006 of 454,375 flights, research by aviation analytics firm Cirium, has found.

In other words, a fall of more than 240,000 flights, or an average daily reduction of 661 flights across the UK.

Perhaps surprisingly, cost isn’t a major factor in customers choosing to ditch flying for the car, coach or train, as fares have stayed roughly flat.

A pre-booked London to Edinburgh flight 20 years ago cost on average between £50 and £100 (once adjusted for inflation) compared with fares of around £40 – £70 today.

So what’s driving the trend?

A combination of better and more frequent train services, higher Air Passenger Duty tax, concern about the environmental impact of flying, and changing work patterns – especially since the pandemic – have all played a part.

Jeremy Bowen, Cirium CEO, said the results showed a “staggering change in the way we travel throughout the UK”.

“Airlines have responded by reducing their internal services and prioritising more popular destinations including Spain, France, and Italy,” he added.

Twenty years ago, Britain’s skies were busy with short domestic hops – British Airways (BA) and British Midland (bmi) shuttled passengers between London and the regions, and Flybe’s purple planes connected cities like Exeter, Leeds, Norwich, and Southampton.

Counting the cost

The impact of changing demand has been brutal.

Flybe, once Europe’s largest regional airline, has collapsed twice; bmi and its low-cost arm, bmibaby, is long gone; and several UK hubs have closed their commercial operations over the past 20 years, including Doncaster Sheffield in 2022, Blackpool in 2014 and Plymouth in 2011.

Also, airlines have shifted their priorities to making greater profits from short-haul services beyond the UK.

Aviation consultant Gavin Eccles said key low-cost carriers, such as easyJet and Ryanair, “have been ordering larger aircraft which means they can fly longer sectors”.

“They need to serve routes that are predominantly with strong ancillary options [baggage, seating] and domestic is more about commuting, so fewer chances to make extra revenues,” he explained.

Indeed, many surviving airports – like Southampton, Norwich, and Exeter – now rely mainly on seasonal leisure flights.

Domestic flights tend to be limited to feeder flights to long-distance hubs like Heathrow, Amsterdam, and Dublin, plus so-called lifeline-style services to remote regions, mostly in Scotland and Northern Ireland.

Rail firms are benefitting, with passenger journeys rising from about 1.08 billion in 2005/06 to 1.73 billion in 2024/25 – an increase of around 60%, according to the Office of Rail and Road Data.

Business

Octopus COPs £500m financing boost for electric vehicles arm

Published

10 hours ago

November 13, 2025

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Octopus COPs £500m financing boost for electric vehicles arm

The electric vehicle-leasing business which forms part of the same group as Britain’s biggest household energy supplier will on Friday announce a £500m extension to its financing war chest.

Sky News has learnt that Octopus Electric Vehicles (Octopus EV) has struck a deal with lenders including Lloyds Banking Group, Morgan Stanley, and Credit Agricole to take its total funding line to £2bn.

The additional financing paves the way for the expansion of the company’s UK fleet from 40,000 to 75,000 cars, and is an extension to a facility agreed with Lloyds in 2023.

Sources said a public announcement would be made at the COP30 climate summit in Brazil.

Last month, EVs accounted for 26% of all new cars in the UK, a record figure, while across Europe, more than 1.7 million EVs were registered in September – a 19% jump from the same month last year.

Octopus EV offers an all-in-one package comprising a leased car, bespoke EV tariffs, home chargers and access to Electroverse, which it describes as Europe’s largest public charging network.

“Electric momentum is surging across the UK and Europe,” said Gurjeet Grewal, CEO of Octopus EV.

“Every month, thousands more drivers are discovering just how affordable and enjoyable making the switch can be – and this fresh funding from Lloyds, Morgan Stanley and Crédit Agricole will allow us to bring even more zero-emission cars onto UK roads.”

Keir Mather, Minister for Aviation, Maritime and Decarbonisation, said the government had “helped over 30,000 people go electric thanks to our electric car grant since we launched it this summer, saving them cash with discounts of up to £3,750 on new EVs”.

“We’re backing people and industry to make the switch with £4.5bn investment, and it’s great to see industry players like Octopus backing the EV revolution and getting more electric cars out on our roads,” Mr Mather added.

The minister’s comments come, however, amid speculation about a pay-per-mile levy on electric car drivers in Rachel Reeves’s budget later this month.

Octopus’s EV arm also specialises in salary sacrifice schemes, which the chancellor is also reportedly planning to target by reducing or removing tax incentives.