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Channel ports face disruption stretching right up to the 31 December Brexit deadline as a race begins to clear a backlog of thousands of lorries built up during France’s 48-hour freight ban.
Eurotunnel expects to resume services on Wednesday morning after France agreed to re-open its border to lorries from the UK, allaying fears of post-Christmas food shortages.
On Tuesday evening, the government was still advising hauliers not to drive to Kent and had yet to provide details of the new arrangements which will include Covid tests for lorry drivers.
France shut its borders to all passengers and drivers coming from the UK on Sunday amid fears of a new coronavirus variant.
Industry boses said that the disruption had already taken a “terrible toll” on hauliers and UK exporters who have lost millions of pounds on spoiled goods including seafood destined for French fish markets.
More than 4,000 lorries crammed onto motorways and were parked up on Manston airport – a disused airfield near the Kent coast that has become a makeshift lorry park. The number was many times more than the prime minister had claimed on Monday.
Duncan Buchanan, director of policy, at the Road Haulage Association, told MPs he was disappointed with how the government had tried to “minimise” the issue.
“This is a very serious problem – whether you have moved trucks from one place to another, it is irrelevant,” he told a Commons committee.
Ian Wright, chief executive of the Food and Drink Federation (FDF), told MPs that the number of food and drink lorries affected was far more than 4,000 because many had chosen not to even enter Kent because of the gridlock.
“We must also recognise the terrible toll being taken on food exporters and hauliers,” he said. Seafood exporters have been particularly severely affected with most unable to claim on insurance.
“We’ll be pressing [the government] very hard to look at a compensation scheme.”
Hauliers expect the current backlog to take around three days to clear but insurer Euler Hermes cautioned that lorries could face delays going out of Dover and Folkestone for a week.
That would lead into the end of the Brexit transition period on 31 December when further disruption is expected as lorries face additional checks and paperwork which many firms are thought to be unprepared for.
Drivers will now also have to take a rapid coronavirus test before making the crossing to France.
Richard Burnett, chief executive of the Road Haulage Association, said the current chaos was a sign of what’s to come after the transition period ends on 31 December whether a trade deal is secured or not.
Appearing at a roundtable discussion with Labour frontbenchers Rachel Reeves and Anneliese Dodds, he praised UK businesses’ Brexit preparations.
“In terms of stock building, the UK I think has done a very good job prior to transition,” he said. “But what we are dealing pretty much straight away is going to eat into that transition stock building that many of the retailers will have done.
“That will be ambient products that has a long-shelf life. The issue we’re going to face is definitely chilled food – it’s going to be salad, it’s going to be veg, it’s going to be fruit, where you have a very short shelf life.”
“If they get delayed coming into the UK they’ll be written off because the life of the product disappears. That’s where the risk is at this point in time.”
Andrew Howard, the managing director of Howard’s distribution, also told the roundtable discussion: “At the moment the crisis we’re in, with Covid and Brexit, we’re struggling to get goods in from abroad.
“Every day we have lorries that should be delivering goods that are coming overnight to UK businesses, to UK houses, but those goods are not coming in. We’ve got a problem in terms of getting the goods in from abroad for our customers.”
He warned that some containers stuck outside Felixstowe were being diverted to Belgium “which increases the problems and congestion and port”.
“In general, there is an increasing concern from customers and pressure from customers in terms of actually we’re now becoming in a state of chaos, the supply chain is falling down. What on earth is going to happen in early 2021? A combination of Covid, of Brexit is just a toxic mix.”
France announced on Sunday evening that it would be banning all but “unaccompanied freight” from the UK for 48 hours, quickly halting all ferry connections, as well as rail services through the Channel tunnel.
The UK transport secretary, Grant Shapps, is understood to have offered the use of rapid-turnaround tests in return for France lifting the ban.
More than 40 countries both inside and outside the EU have imposed travel restrictions to contain the spread of the new variant, which UK government scientists claim is 70 per cent more infectious than the established version of the virus.
President Emmanuel Macron’s office said only that EU travellers and UK citizens with EU residence who have a negative coronavirus test less than 72 hours old will be allowed to enter France. French transport minister Jean-Baptiste Djebbari said an announcement on accompanied freight transport would be made later on Tuesday evening.
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