A large field is being converted into a giant parking lot for up 1,700 heavy trucks within 30 kilometers of the U.K.’s busiest ferry port at Dover and the Channel tunnel entrance at Folkestone. The Sevington Inland Border Facility (IBF) is one of seven being procured around the country under a $360-million government fast-track effort announced by senior minister Michael Gove this summer. The IBF program is being rushed through before the U.K. leaves Europe’s Custom Union and Single Market on Dec. 31 as the final stage of Brexit; the country’s departure from the European Union (E.U.).
During the decades of E.U. membership, U.K. traders could send goods and agricultural produce across the English Channel almost unhindered by customs arrangements. That amounted to 220 million tonnes last year. But all that ends within a few weeks.