December 15th, 2020.

Lewes Liberal Democrats release:


“The preparations made by Kent County Council have been all over the news in the last week,” said Cllr James MacCleary, parliamentary spokesperson for Lewes. “But when a Lib Dem county councillor, Cllr Darren Grover, raised the Newhaven road capacity issue for lorries entering the port after we exit the single market and the customs union as a verbal question at the county council, he was assured that there was sufficient capacity at the port and there would be no disruption, queues or other impacts on surrounding roads.

“If we get a No Deal, all the current methods of working will vanish on the 1st of January and ports will have to deal with tariffs which are taxes on goods, being brought into or leaving the country. All these changes mean that the seamless way that ports and cross-channel transport work is coming to an end, but there seems to be no acknowledgement from either central government, by Highways or by East Sussex County Council that there are any changes needed at Newhaven.

"I know many people find what is going on at the ports and with leaving the EU really confusing, but the very basic trade deal that the government is seeking only deals with goods, it’s that or no deal at all. In both cases, this means a huge increase in paperwork and checks for goods and big delays in transit times. Things are never going to be the same again, despite government promises of frictionless trade and ‘the same benefits as before’.

“I have written to the Minister and raised it in the press and have been assured that there are no plans for a Brexit lorry park. Neither the Minister nor the Civil Service as far as I am aware have set out any further contingency plans for ports in the south east other than Dover. The Government and ESCC seem blissfully unaware that major retailers such as Tesco are talking about rerouting transport routes away from Dover to other cross-channel routes. Newhaven-Dieppe is one of those routes. It’s also likely that if Dover becomes log-jammed, then hauliers will reroute trucks to other channel ports.

“If the government and the county council were on top of this issue and listening to hauliers and the road transport industry and to businesses like supermarkets, manufacturers and food importers, then they would be making proper contingency plans. It looks like their strategy is to shut their eyes and keep their fingers crossed and hope it will go away. Local communities deserve more than this and they certainly don’t deserve lines of trucks stacked back along the A26 because of complacency by East Sussex County Council.”