A Brexit border control post that cost £24million could be demolished as it has no "obvious commercial use."
The facility at Portsmouth International Port was built with a £17m central government grant and £7m from Portsmouth City Council.
It was built to perform physical checks on food and plant imports from the EU at the end of next month. However, changes to border protocols since it was built mean half of the building will never be used.
Portsmouth City Council, which owns the port, it is designed to carry out checks on up to 80 truck loads of produce a day. It now expects to process only four or five daily.
The facility at Portsmouth International Port is only expected to run at half capacity
PA
Experts say the facility, which was built for a very specific purpose inside a secure area, has no obvious commercial use. Portsmouth City Council has said that it wants its £7m share of the £24m build cost reimbursed by the government
Director of Portsmouth International Port and chairman of the British Ports Association Mike Sellers said: "This was built to a Defra [Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs] specification when the border operating model was announced and it's been mothballed for two years while the checks were delayed.
"Now the border will be operating with far fewer checks, we are going to struggle to cover the running costs of around £800,000 a year. So we have to look to the future and work out what strategically is the best way to minimise the impact to the port and to the council.
"I know it sounds ironic, but that could be building another border control post much smaller than this facility, and looking to find commercial ways to get income either through this facility or to demolish it and use the operational land for something else."
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Chairman of the British Ports Association Mike Sellers
PA
Transport lead for the city council Gerald Vernon-Jones told Sky News: "We as a council had to find £7m to help build this facility and now we're on the fifth change of mind about how much inspection there will be.
"Half of this building is going to be left empty, idle, unused, and yet it's costing council taxpayers of Portsmouth a great deal of money...It's a total and absolute mess, we have an enormous white elephant here."
The original July 2021 deadline for physical checks of plant and animal produce was postponed because the new border control posts (BCPs) were not ready.
In April 2022, the government introduced a new risk-based approach that limits checks to certain high and medium-risk food and plant categories.
However, even with reduced checks on imports the government's own analysis suggests border controls will add £330m a year to the cost of trading with the continent and increase food inflation.
A spokesperson for Defra said: "Our border control posts have sufficient capacity and capability, including for temperature controlled consignments, to handle the volume and type of expected checks and the authorities will be working to minimise disruption as these checks are introduced."
