Thread by @pmdfoster

🚨🇪🇺🇬🇧🚛🚛🚛🚛🇬🇧🇪🇺🚨Regional ports fear unfair #Brexit advantage for Channel rivals…my latest via @FT /1
on.ft.com/31lSF7A

@FT This relates to how the UK government will price its inland inspection sites (at Sevington in Kent and elsewhere) for when physical inspections come into force in July...the Channel Ports (Dover, Folkestone) had not space so didn't have to build border control posts/2

@FT Other UK ports were given £200m through Port Infrastructure Fund to build BCPs (which was a 65% subsidiy in effect) but Major Ports Group chair Charles Hammond tells me regional ports fear there won't be a level playing field /3

@FT They had hoped that #Brexit would bring lots more unaccompanied loads to east coast regional ports...but worry that if UK govt prices inspection sites in Kent too cheaply, it will distort market and wrong incentivise short strait traffic/4

@FT There is an element of special pleading in this -- the UK govt makes point that £200m is a lot of money and ports anyway had legal responsibility to provide facilities/5

@FT Dover says that it isn't its problem, since it is essentially "just a piece of road" that trucks pass through...and how government recovers costs from building Sevingtong/Dover White Cliffs etc is the governments business/6

@FT But this points to a thorny issue for the government, which is due to announce its prices "in the New Year" -- ie soon -- and these will benchmark the other ports, in practice. /7

@FT The difficulty (as always with #Brexit borders) is that applying the same processes as you use for low-intensity, long-sea trade (shipping containers from Asia or USA) doesn't work so well with high-intensity/ro-ro trade with EU, where 50% of UK imports come from /8

@FT The fact that it's taken govt so long to come up with a pricing structure (when ports need to be able to tell clients at least a quarter ahead of time) is testament to how this particular hot potato has been passed round Whitehall, despite external help from consultants /9

@FT Be one to watch in the coming weeks as to how the government plays it.

FWIW, I hear that privately, several port operators now wish they'd never bothered to build their own BCPs. 10/ENDS