Government Pledges £9 Million For No-Deal Preparation At Ports

21 August 2019, 12:52

Boris Johnson says the money will help ensure areas are fully prepared for Brexit on 31 October.

An extra £9 million will be made available to major port towns to get the ready for a no-deal Brexit.

Local Government secretary Robert Jenrick announced that £5 million will be given to local councils with major land, air or sea ports to ensure that they will be able to continue to operate effectively after 31 October.

The remaining £4 million will be shared between local resilience forums to aid them in their preparations.

This brings the total funding allocated by the government to help local areas prepare for Brexit to £77 million.

Local authorities in Kent will receive £2.6 million of this funding as it is home to a number of significant ports including Dover, Ashford and the Eurotunnel.

The allocations have been based on a number of factors including the expected impact on the local area, the amount of EU goods received by port areas into the country and the areas wider importance to the UK’s trade network.

However, the leader of Portsmouth council has called the no-deal funding "too little, too late"and said that local councils have already spent millions preparing ports for potentially thousands of lorries exiting the UK.

He stated that his council has already spent £4 million on preparations for 31 October.

Calais has invested £20 million in no-deal contingency planning.

The announcement comes after Boris Johnson ramped up his no-deal plans, including attempting to remove the "undemocratic" backstop from the Brexit deal, automatically registering 88,000 firms for EU VAT systems and meeting with Angela Merkel and Emmanuel Macron today and tomorrow.