EXCLUSIVE Brexit disruption could return with summer tourists, says Dover chief

LONDON, July 9 (Reuters) – Britain’s largest port has said post-Brexit disruption could return to Dover and slow trade when holidaymakers head to Europe this summer.

Britain’s passage out of the European Union has been facilitated by a lack of tourists to France during the pandemic, allowing port staff to process the additional documents for trucks that are now required to access the ‘Europe and keep goods moving.

But the government on Thursday dropped a travel quarantine requirement for fully vaccinated Britons, potentially opening up holiday routes and increasing the number of vehicles that could descend on the southwest port in the summer. Read more

Doug Bannister, CEO of the Port of Dover, told Reuters the site has so far handled the move to full customs checks well, after Britain left the trade bloc in late 2020.

“This is because we have not seen the demand for tourists coming from our facilities, as we would normally expect to see,” he told Reuters on a bright sunny day as a ferry departed. for Calais.

“It is at these times that the pressure on the whole system increases.”

In 2019, some 2.4 million trucks used the port of Dover, as well as 2 million passenger cars and 74,000 coaches.

Dover modeled the impact of a return of passenger cars to port, and Bannister said there would be challenges if that happened quickly. “There will be longer transaction times and more processing,” he said.

UK industry had warned as Brexit approached that UK supply chains could be stretched to breaking point, even with the government saying some 7,000 trucks could return from Dover if they didn’t fill up not correctly documents.

Instead, a rush in December to store goods in the country, which led to 20-mile queues outside Dover at the time, led to a drop in trade in January and allowed manufacturers and logistics groups to adapt to new demands.

Reporting by Kate Holton; edited by Guy Faulconbridge

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