Ministers are trying to sell a 1,300-truck Brexit border check facility in Kent that is set to be rendered redundant by this week’s EU trade pact.
The government-run Border Control Point (BCP) at Sevington in Ashford, Kent, was built in 2021 to accommodate the flood of lorries anticipated in the event of a no-deal Brexit.
It handles the majority of checks on plants and animal goods such as dairy and meat arriving into Britain — a process that will be reduced once the UK-EU reset deal comes into force.
The government has approached Eurotunnel and the Port of Dover about acquiring or repurposing the site, according to three people with knowledge of the talks, though discussions were said to be at an early stage.
Dover Port chief executive Doug Bannister said the deal announced at the EU-UK summit was to be welcomed and would ease supply chains that cross between Britain and the continent.
“Clearly there is a lot of detail to work through on how that’s to be implemented and we’re keen to continue our discussions with government for what this means for the BCP at Sevington,” he added.
Eurotunnel did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The UK-EU deal should, in time, render superfluous the 41 border facilities built by Britain’s port operators at the behest of the government to accommodate post-Brexit checks.
Some port operators are demanding compensation, since the deal has left them with “white elephant” Border Control Post facilities they spent a combined £120mn building.
“These BCPs will stand as Ozymandian monuments to the height of Brexit,” said one senior port executive. “We were made to spend millions constructing them at breakneck speed, then hired people to work in them, and now we learn they are not going to be required at some point in the future.”
Sevington is funded by a “common user charge” that applies to all consignments entering the country. The facility cost £23mn to run in the year to April 2025.
But the total revenue generated by the common user charge between May 2024 and March 2025 was just £12.58mn, according to figures from the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) obtained by the Freight Liaison group through a freedom of information request.
In a committee hearing on Tuesday, Defra director-general for food and biosecurity Emily Miles said the government expected a “scaling back of some checks” that would mean “a decommissioning of some facilities”. She added the government still needed “to work through where and how”.
UK government officials have told supermarkets that a veterinary agreement with the EU could be signed as early as the end of this year, with border checks being substantially reduced from the first half of 2026.
Portsmouth, a local authority-owned port, was among those that said it would be seeking compensation after spending £6mn of council funds towards a £23mn, two-acre facility that is taking up land that port had hoped to use for other commercial purposes.
“It was hoped that we could recoup costs through charging for goods to be inspected, however, if the BCP is no longer in use we will be looking for compensation from government to recover the shortfall,” said Steve Pitt, the leader of Portsmouth City Council.
He added the facility, which is less than 3-years-old and was built for a highly specialised role that makes it extremely difficult to repurpose, might now need to be demolished.
The British Ports Association (BPA), the trade body for ports and harbours in the UK, said that it estimated that the industry had collectively spent £120mn building 41 BCPs that were requested by the previous Conservative government in 2020 to fully implement Brexit.
The scheme caused anger among port executives at the time when it emerged that a £200mn government fund would cover only two-thirds of the cost of the new BCPs, leaving ports to pick up the balance.
Multiple delays in fully implementing border checks on EU imports — caused by government fears of border queues and higher food prices — meant the completed BCPs remained unused for nearly two years, leaving port executives fuming about the “white elephant” projects.
The facilities finally opened on April 30 last year, although it emerged that many loads were being waved through because UK border control computer systems were only partially functional.
The BPA estimates that each border post costs £200,000 to keep operational, and wrote to the Labour government after it was elected last July saying that it would demand compensation for BCPs that had been built “at the direction of government”.
The Cabinet Office said the government would work with ports to deliver any changes as seamlessly as possible.
It added: “This government committed in its manifesto to negotiate an agreement to prevent unnecessary border checks, remove red tape for businesses and help tackle the cost of food, which is what we have delivered on.”
