HMRC scraps plans for new Inland Border Facility in Dover

Officials says by no longer going ahead with the plans it will save £120 million

Aerial view of fields close to the village of Guston near Dover, Kent, where the Department of Transport has purchased the White Cliffs site with plans to turn it into an inland border facility and lorry park for 1,200 trucks (Gareth Fuller/PA Wire) (PA Archive)

Plans for a new inland border facility (IBF) in Dover will no longer go ahead, HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) has announced.

It was hoped a new facility, located at a business park off the A2 in Kent, would see millions of pounds of investment in the area and create 400 jobs.

However, today HMRC has announced it will no longer go ahead with opening the facility.

The review showed that the existing facilities have enough capacity to deal with the flow of traffic and therefore a new site was not necessary

HMRC spokesman

A spokesman said: “IBFs were introduced to deal with border control checks post-Brexit, and were constantly under review to make sure they provided value for money.

“A new proposed site at Dover was part of this review, and after looking into the amount of cross channel traffic and the necessary associated checks, a decision has been made not to progress with the site.

“The review showed that the existing facilities have enough capacity to deal with the flow of traffic and therefore a new site was not necessary.

“This decision will see a saving of around £120 million – the anticipated cost of developing and running Dover IBF for the intended duration – and allow the funds to be utilised elsewhere.”

However, the statement from HMRC stressed that the decision not to build the facility does not mean the asset is no longer required by Government.

Construction work to build the new border facility began in April, with Dover MP Natalie Elphicke taking part in a ground-breaking ceremony that month.

Alongside Dover, the Birmingham and North Weald IBF sites will also close ahead of schedule. They were introduced on a temporary basis to support customs checks when the UK first left the EU.

Now the sites in Holyhead, Wales and Sevington, near Ashford are fully operational and coping well with demand, HMRC says it no longer needs the support of the interim sites.