UK Wasted at Least £100m on 'Zombie' Brexit Border Posts: Five of Seven Inland Facilities Never Operated
LONDON — Figures released by HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) under freedom of information requests show that the seven inland border facilities Britain built to check goods from the European Union after Brexit cost taxpayers at least £100 million, and five of them never became operational before being closed or left idle — 'zombie border posts,' as British media have called them. The figures were reported by The Guardian on November 8, renewing questions over the border preparations of the Brexit years.
The facilities were built to inspect goods arriving from the continent, but the Conservative government of the day vacillated over the checking regime and ultimately concluded that EU food met the same standards as British food, so the full checks were never implemented and five sites never saw their first day of operation. The unused sites include Birmingham, in an airport car park, as well as Warrington, Ebbsfleet and North Weald.
Of the two sites still operating, the Sevington inland border facility in Kent, about 20 miles from the Port of Dover, is Britain's principal Brexit border post: the government previously disclosed capital costs of £154 million, including about £30 million to acquire farmland and about £70 million to build, and HMRC has now disclosed operational costs of £179 million. The other operating site is Holyhead in Wales, which cost £14 million to acquire and £23 million to build.
Portsmouth Port, owned by the city council, spent £23 million building its border control post, which has never been used at full capacity. Port director Mike Sellers said the facility now averages around two trailer checks a day, compared with the 80 originally envisaged, and its future is uncertain. The National Audit Office previously estimated the overall cost of Brexit at about £4.7 billion, including some £711 million spent on freight border infrastructure between 2020-21 and 2023-24.
(Source: HM Revenue and Customs)
Source: HM Revenue and Customs
Published by GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 图：位于英国肯特郡 Ashford 附近的 Sevington 内陆边检设施（Tim Sheerman-Chase 摄）。CC BY 2.0，经 Wikimedia Commons。 / Photo: The Sevington Inland Border Facility near Ashford, Kent, England (Tim Sheerman-Chase). CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
