The Port of Dover could become a target for criminals smuggling illegal and diseased meat into the country under new post-Brexit plans that will involve lorries from the continent being checked 22 miles inland, the port’s health authority has warned.
The Dover Port Health Authority (DPHA) is now considering legal action against the government over its decision to end physical checks of imported meat at a post within the port. Instead, lorries will be directed to a new checking facility half an hour’s drive up the M20 at Sevington, Ashford.
Lucy Manzano, the head of the authority, said that as a port with the only inland border control post in the country, Dover could become a hotspot for criminal gangs trying to bypass checks.
She said: “These goods will now come through Dover without interception at the port, with the anticipation and hope that drivers will self-present at a facility 22 miles away.
“It would be reasonable to assume that people involved in criminal activity – and there’s lots of money to be made within food crime – would start redirecting their stuff through Dover, because the controls won’t be in place.”
The warning from the body, which is run by Dover district council, comes before the new post-Brexit border rules being brought in at the end of April, which will require most meat and dairy products to be physically checked at government border control posts (BCPs). At present, only spot checks are carried out by the DPHA on loads that come through the port.
Currently, the DPHA is able to carry out spot checks on certain food products at the port to stop biosecurity threats such as meat carrying African swine fever from entering the country. In 2022, the authority seized 66 tonnes of illegal meat products as a result of these checks.