A massive effort from hauliers and agencies involved in the Hampshire Local Resilience Forum, as well as successful EU Exit planning, means a key Brexit milestone will be reached earlier than planned.
With 8 of the scheduled 12 weeks of Operation Transmission passed, the decision to downscale the operation and return the A31 to normal has been taken.
From 18th February, lorries will no longer need to pull off the motorway network on the A31 and have papers checked in advance.
The key factors in the decision were:
- Strong Compliance: Border-ready compliance rates by hauliers using Portsmouth International Port in terms of the required paperwork are now, and have been in recent weeks, consistently strong. Compliance now stands at around 90% each day compared with the reasonable worst-case scenario that up to 70% of lorries would not be border ready.
- Volumes of Traffic Through the Port: Activity at Portsmouth International Port has increased. They are not yet back to ‘normal’ levels but they are now far higher than at the start of January. More than 1,900 lorries have passed through our A31 site and 2,500 lorries through our Tipner site since the start of January.
Chief Fire Officer and Strategic Coordinating Group Chair for the Hampshire and Isle of Wight LRF, Neil Odin commented:
“We look carefully at the facts and every indicator tells us that things are running smoothly enough to allow us to be proactive and make this important decision to downscale our operation ahead of time. Of course, there are still risks as volumes of freight are still volatile but there is a balance to strike and we have listened carefully to hauliers, local people and those who represent them.
“We planned for the reasonable worst case scenario that we were presented with and I am so proud of everyone, from those at the Port to those who worked at the triage points, the staff in our LRF agencies, and the lorry drivers who continue to work hard to get that paperwork right.
“As we leave the A31 site we feel it is important to leave things in better shape than when we arrived. Part of that is an army of volunteers who will be out picking litter on Friday 19 February. I’d like to again thank the local community for their understanding.”
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Councillor Rob Humby, Deputy Leader and Executive Member for Economy, Transport and Environment at Hampshire County Council, said:
“I’d like to thank the Local Resilience Forum for making this plan the success that it was. The Government asked the LRF to plan for the possibility of traffic disruption as freight travelled from other parts of the country to the Port of Portsmouth for a short period immediately after the UK left the EU. Mitigation measures were put in place, fully funded by the Government, and the plan was continually monitored to ensure it delivered what it intended, which was to ensure minimum disruption to the day to day lives of Hampshire residents.”
Where are all the remoaners that were convinced it was all going to be chaos and mayhem. Sounds like old Boris is doing a great job all round.
The undemocratic far left that predicted armaghgedem are red-faced, it’s a fantastic victory for all that apriciate true democracy..
Long live our democracy, and down with communist dictatorship…
It was to many, quite clear that the EU were never going to do us any favours, so we should have left much sooner. Then, by now, many issues would have been solved.
The EU, have no choice even IF they wanted to go ‘easy’ on the UK, as they fear contagion of other nations who are dissatisfied leaving IF they were to see the UK getting a ‘better deal’ by being ‘out’ than in.
So although in some cases they will be seen to be cutting of their nose to spite their face, they are in fact cutting off their nose, to SAVE their face.
For to them, the ‘union’ of the remaining states matter more than some wet fish, and a bottle of scotch
They are already taking our most valuable ‘earning’ finance from the UK, which was a very very big earner for this country and something which should have been at the front of the ‘deal’
I voted OUT and would do so again, but the finance deal should have been the one priority agreed.
And, from the way that the EU have been behaving, and are still behaving, you do have to think that perhaps we made the right choice!
(P.S., don’t tell the Remoaners that).
Smooth?
Fishermen screwed, not allowed to sell shellfish in the EU markets that they have supplied for years.
Northern Ireland a mess.
Yes some aspects have run as expected. Others are a mess. Even Micheal Gove admits as much.
The majority of seafood sold in the UK is exported to the UK from the EU, ie from Germany, Sweden and Denmark.
If the UK fisherman would rather sell their wares to the EU so we can buy it back at a premium price then something is dreadfully wrong.
Precisely and, we should get it cheaper, the fishermen don’t have to pay for transport and less carbon footprint.
The people may change sea food instead of chikun nugguts for their childrens diet, thus end up healthier too. A win win win