Thread by @jonworth

This is a thread about the borders of Kent 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿

These are words I never thought I would write.

It's surprisingly interesting. And surprisingly like the Balkans.

This of course relates to Michael Gove's admission that a Kent Access Permit will be required for trucks to cope with the impact of Brexit from 1 January:
theguardian.com/politics/2020/…

So what *are* the borders of Kent?

It depends what Kent is.

Is it the ceremonial county of Kent? If so it's this

Or is it the political Kent?

Note the area around Chatham.

That's this

Let's zoom in on that - the red line on Google Maps represents the border between Kent (to the south) and Medway (a unitary authority, to the north).

Also note that makes Medway an enclave - no land border to any other part of the UK.

Look how messy that gets!

Now zoom in on the roads.

The A2-M2 is - you knew it - one of the main roads to the channel ports. It goes in and out of Medway twice (border crossings numbered 1-4)

I *assume* that when Gove says Kent he means - politically - Kent and Medway. Not one county, but a county and a unitary authority.

Or does Medway get a special exemption permit for the trucks going there and not stopping while crossing a sliver of Kent? 🤔

And yes, you've heard of things like this before - like in Neum 🇧🇦, and the old headaches for Uzbekistan 🇺🇿 to access the Fergana Valley and needing to transit Tajikistan 🇹🇯.

But I digress. Back to the Kent border.

What about the rest of it.

@scandifriend pointed me to the case of Hawley's Corner - 5 roads coming together, one of which is actually the border of Kent. How do you solve that? Ban trucks on those roads?

@donnyc1975 is starting to have Swiss-style nightmares by now!

There's the associated issue of what a truck even is. We assume the rules apply to anything over 3.5 tonnes - so if you are a firm delivering to Kent what do you do? Get some exception for deliveries, or start using smaller vehicles instead? Legislative burdens, gotta love em!

And then what about Hastings in East Sussex?

@JoseGameWriter points out to me that driving to London from there takes you... through Kent.

How are you going to solve that? Get supermarket delivery trucks to get a special transit permit?

So how is the UK Government going to solve these issues?

Remember the end of the Brexit transition period is 100 days away... and Whitehall's record on the delivery of big IT infrastructure projects is... well, could be better.

And you 59% of the people of Kent (political definition) who voted for Brexit... you knew this was exactly what you were voting for, right?

bbc.com/news/uk-politi…

/ends

Ah. Silly me. I didn't go back far enough!

https://twitter.com/SarahfromChis/status/1309108002096635905

P.S. If you liked this thread and wondered "how might you actually solve this problem?" there is now a follow up on that!

https://twitter.com/jonworth/status/1309803418249302016