The UK relies on fresh produce from mainland Europe. But port logjams loom, and we appear to have run out of storage space, says Guardian columnist George Monbiot
www.theguardian.com
Well thats a few minutes of my life i wont get back. If i pick up his first point about upto 2 days delay which is no good for fresh produce. He then goes on to say "Is the problem confined to fresh food? With neither strategic food reserves nor a strategic risk"
So he is saying that we should have reserves of fresh food stored in warehouses for X period of time but they will be off if they are delayed by upto 2 days. Slight contradiction in his logic.
Maybe he isnt old enough to remember but way back in 1988 the single administrative document or C88 was introduced to simplify and standardise customs procedure either into or out of european countries.
At that time a full customs entry was required on export from say France and on import to the UK. At no point other than during strikes or fuel shortages has it taken days longer to get good in and out of the UK and Europe. Unless the goods were pulled for either a documentation check for physical examination they were cleared customs in 1 hour at both sides of the journey.
Now if he was talking about delays due to covid as products that would normally be moved airfreight cant due to reduced flights and capacity he might have a point. Fresh flowers for example from certain parts of the world.
Currently for goods moving to and from europe their is still a short form of c88 completed. This creates the customs records at origin and entry points. Its approx 1/3rd of the data of a full entry. The main difference being that its marked as route 6 cleared within minutes of the entry being made.
There is no logical or logistical reason why good from europe will take upto 2 days longer by having to complete c88s on both ends of the journey. Previous history proves that.
Most freight companies will charge around £35 admin fee for a European import by air by road its built into the total freight charge. A full customs clearance will cost you around £45 so approx £10 x 2 increase in cost per 40ft trailer
If the journalist also dug a little deeper he would realise that warehouse space has been in decline for years partly due to lower demand as big business such as the aviation and car industries moved to mobile warehousing. Why have the overheads of a big often half empty warehouse when you can store the goods in transit on the water or road.
Some of the scare mongerry that is being published reminds me of that well known doomsday event of the millenium bug. Im sure you all remember the stories in the press you wouldnt be able to get money from the bank, food from the shops , all computers would crash and planes would be grounded. You may look back and think that was just daft and nothing happened. Yet there was a really simple test to check if any computer was going to be affected by the millenium which was change the date and time on the computer to 31/12/1999 23.59hrs and then wait for a minute.
Aside from some older computers where the bios went back to 1980 and no bios updates were available nothing of the foretold doomsday scenarios happened.
Lets hope the same occurs with brexit come 1st January.
There were no major issues or delays when the SAD C88 was introduced in 1988 so no reason why bringing back a full customs entry again should now. They were filled out by hand and taken to customs in 1988. Today its uploaded to Chief as soon as you hit the send button.