UK Customs May Face Significant Logistical Issues With Increased Declarations After Brexit, Industry Experts Say

United Kingdom customs and trade logistics operations may be quickly overwhelmed when the U.K. officially leaves the European Union next year, which could lead to delays at ports and create significant shortages of customs intermediaries, two U.K. industry experts said. The U.K. is expected to face a shortage of more than 40,000 customs intermediary staff and 50,000 truck drivers, all while export declarations are expected to increase by 500%, said John Lucy, a trade manager at the Freight Transport Association, and George Baker, founder of U.K.-based shipping company George Baker Shipping. “These factors will add significant potential costs and time implications in order to cross borders,” Lucy said during a March 16 webinar hosted by the Institute of Export & International Trade.

After being given a tour last year of the new Brexit customs facilities at the French Port of Calais, Lucy said, he determined the facilities would work well with limited volume but might be overwhelmed with the drastic increase in customs checks that will be required for imports from the U.K. Lucy said port authorities estimated that vehicles transporting agricultural products may require nearly three hours to be cleared, even if there are no paperwork issues. This will create issues if 100 vehicles arrive at the port via ferry every hour, Lucy said. “Within three hours you’ve got 300 vehicles, and they're only processing one every two to three hours,” he said. “That’s where the problems will come and that’s why you'll more than likely get traffic delays.”

Baker said the U.K. should expect to see a “massively” increased number of export declarations once it leaves the EU Jan. 1, requiring much more staffing. “It appears right now that the U.K. needs to somehow mobilize tens of thousands of new shift workers who will be needed in the public sector to input the massive increase in customs declarations,” Baker said. He added that port operators have expressed concern about the “huge volume of export road freight” that might arrive at the ports, especially ones that don’t have correct documentation. With “no customs entry and no permission to progress,” vehicles will be unable to board ferries. “Without proper management of this situation, the feared gridlock at the ports, which we hope will never happen, could possibly become a reality,” Baker said. “We have to be sure to find solutions very quickly.”

The increase in declarations will also place “extreme time pressure” on export entry clerks, Baker said, especially those who will handle short-sea exports from the U.K. to the EU. As opposed to deep-sea exports to countries outside the EU, which can “dwell in the quayside for a while” before being loaded onto a vessel, short-sea exports are “routinely loaded almost immediately” onto ferry crossings that operate nonstop, Baker said. “Export entry clerks ... must expect to be working under extreme time pressure,” Baker said. “Out-of-hours attendance is almost certain to be necessary, perhaps working three shifts to do this kind of work.”

A shortage of truck drivers within the U.K. could lead to logistical issues, Lucy said, which may be magnified by new immigration rules after Brexit. Baker said “many” EU nationals work as truck drivers in the U.K. for U.K. companies. “New immigration rules next year could potentially increase this shortage,” Lucy said.