Haulage boss: Windsor Framework problems are deeper than it seems - but firms are afraid to speak out

​The businessman also accused the government of making “mischief” by over-hyping the benefits of the framework.

The man, whose identity the News Letter is withholding, said he agrees fully with the comments of Mark Tait – managing director of Target Transport in Randalstown – a day earlier at a parliamentary committee.

Mr Tait had said that “as far as haulage is concerned, there is no green lane between GB and Northern Ireland… the only green lane is actually between the EU and Northern Ireland via the Republic”.

The reason, in essence, is that it appears to him that only goods for immediate sale direct to consumers can go through the so-called ‘green lane’.

The green lane had been billed by the government as being a largely check-free pathway straight through the Province’s ports.

But Mr Tait pointed to the EU’s interpretation of the Windsor Framework rules, which states that, firstly, the green lane will not see a “full eradication” of checks, and secondly that it will only be open to cargo which is “for final sale or use by end consumers in Northern Ireland”.

However, Mr Tait’s firm carries industrial-type goods like car parts, which are not sold to consumers but to other businesses, who will decide for themselves what to do with them.

The anonymous businessman who spoke to the News Letter on Friday echoed this, saying “I know dozens of companies that are in the same situation as ourselves” but the “potential for adverse publicity” means they cannot say so publicly.

He said: “The Windsor Framework does not address the fundamental problem whereby goods movements within the UK are still defined as at-risk.

"Secondly despite the Prime Minister mischievously claiming the Windsor Framework ensures goods movements from Birmingham to Belfast are the same as London to the Isle of Wight, this is not the case. There should be no difference.”

He added: “We recognise the EU had every right to protect it's borders, and therefore recognised the right for a red lane.

“But the need for that red lane should not have extended to goods that will only circulate within the UK market.

"The reason the green lane is there is really aimed at pacifying the retailers, and keeping goods on supermarket shelves.

“That's the thing that's visible to the general public. The general public doesn't see the fact that I have to employ additional people to take the bureaucracy – all that stuff is hidden."