Continued disruption at the French border is causing critical disruption to UK businesses, members of the Road Haulage Association and threatening the long term viability of some long established overseas hauliers.
Research undertaken by the Federation of Small Business (FSB) shows it is a national issue with 11 per cent of their members being affected, but this number nearly doubles to 21 per cent in the South East region. But how is this effecting Stockport and North West?
Are the French police coping at the borders?
Speaking on the BBC recently, a North West based lorry driver vented his frustration as his own employers had suspended cross-channel exports. 11 immigrants had entered his truck at a filling station and, while 8 were immediately evicted, a further 3 had secreted themselves away from view. Despite warning the French police that he was sure there were further stowaways he was moved on, leading to UK border police discovering the immigrants and leading to the issue of fines against the driver personally and to his employers.
Ken Sims (left) of Stockport based Sims Haulage agreed that it is an ongoing highly disruptive scenario:
“This has already led to the resignation of two of our European drivers and is leading us to consider the ongoing impact and cost to that element of our business. This could lead us to consider our position in our driver accompanied services to Europe.
“The Governments of France and England have systematically reduced their overall responsibilities to manage immigration and the current fining system of genuine UK hauliers is an example of how they have been passing the responsibility directly to those who have no power or influence over immigration.”
Sean Byrne, Managing Director of Hazel Grove based Eastward Logistics, agrees that the cost implications to business here and overseas is exacerbated by time delays:
“Dealing with logistics for the oil & gas industries, much of the equipment we transport is time sensitive. Just a few hours delay on a delivery can equate to thousands of euros in costs as teams of engineers stand idly by or, even worse, production has to shut down. Even though the situation at Calais has been ongoing, it’s still almost impossible to predict how long it may take a vehicle to cross the Channel.
“Alternate crossings are available, but these fill quickly and are considerably more expensive. The capacity just isn’t there to alleviate all the problems at Dover.
“We can introduce caveats, waivers and disclaimers but that’s no real help to a customer who needs to know a specific time or date of arrival, be that in Italy, Romania, Turkey or Azerbaijan. In the end we have to keep in touch with drivers on an hourly basis and feed the “on the ground” information back to our clients.”
Yet, despite the disruption to business, Sean is sensitive to the cause:
“As much of a crisis as this may be for British business, we’d all do well to remember that it’s a far larger humanitarian crisis”.
The FSB has raised the issue to the attention of the European Commission and is seeking help to protect the livelihood of UK and EU small firms.
HMRC warns of Self Assessment scams 
Inflation rose to 3.8% in July 
Message confirmed for national emergency alert test