19.09.19
Portsmouth City Council plea for Brexit funding
The leader or Portsmouth City Council, Gerald Vernon-Jackson, hosted Department for Transport minister Chris Heaton-Harris at the city’s port this week.
During the visit, a request for Brexit funding was brought up by Vernon-Jackson in the form of a letter to the transport minister.
The visit was part of the Government’s ‘Get Ready for Brexit’ awareness roadshow campaign. It was a chance for the transport minister to view the port and see how the campaign was going in the run up to Brexit.
The councillors letter outlined the council's current financial contribution towards preparing for a no-deal Brexit through its work with the Local Resilience Forum (LRF), and also the forecasted spend required to make sure the city and the port can continue to operate with minimal disruption.
This comes after the government announced extra funding for local authorities to manage in the case of a no-deal Brexit. In the letter, this extra funding was referred to as ‘welcomed’ but ‘inadequate.’ It mentions not even being enough to cover current funds, let alone future plans.
Councillor Vernon-Jackson told the transport minister that Portsmouth was being overlooked, saying: “Portsmouth International Port is the second busiest cross channel port [behind Dover].
“Whilst we accept that the Government's focus has been on Dover and Kent because of the scale of their operations, we do feel that the impact on Portsmouth has been largely ignored.”
In order to enforce LRF devised, ‘Operation Transmission’ which involved running a traffic management plan and creating a lorry park to help keep the M275 flowing freely, Portsmouth City Council were required to spend £1.13m, of which they received £286k in Brexit Port Funding.
He ended the letter with a plea to commit to Portsmouth’s costs, adding: “Without this our residents will suffer as the result of central government’s decision making.”