Preparing for the end of transition

Kent’s geography - its position on the Short Straits crossing to continental Europe - has always meant that the County would be in the front line of the effects of Brexit, and of the end of the UK’s transition out of the EU, the Single Market and Customs Union. The County Council and its partners have long worked to manage that and limit its effects on the County’s residents and businesses.

Yesterday marked a month to the end of transition. We provided a briefing for all County Councillors on the latest preparations; this followed a report to our public Cabinet meeting on Monday. This morning I opened a webinar conference for Kent businesses on the same subject.

All this work details the extensive preparations that we have undertaken, both to secure the continuity of our own services and to prepare - working with our partners in the Kent Resilience Forum, and with national government - traffic management plans to minimise disruption. These work from the government’s ‘Reasonable Worst Case Scenario’ of 7,000 HGVs having to be held within Kent.

Two major conclusions stand out. Firstly, whether or not the UK and EU reach a deal, huge changes are coming to our trade regime with the EU (and with it, a major increase in required paperwork) because of the UK departure from the Single Market. The second is that the degree to which we have to trigger our traffic management plans depends on other factors beyond our control: trader and haulier readiness, and the operation of the systems set up by government to seek to enable trade fluidity. In both areas there have been signs of progress but much is still uncertain. There can be no guarantees of what will happen after 31 December, but in Kent we have worked to do everything possible to ensure that our residents and businesses can continue their daily lives and work with minimum disruption.

There has been a lot of media interest, and yesterday I gave interviews to BBC Radio 4’s PM Programme, (some 47 minutes in) and then as part of a panel discussion on Newsnight (first item, panel discussion about eleven and a half minutes in). In both I emphasised how we are working to protect the interests of Kent, whatever January 2021 may bring.