Hauliers appeal for new post-Brexit checks to be eased - ‘We have seen a drop-off today of about 100 loads per week’

A number of haulage operators appeared before a Stormont committee just weeks into a new era of mandatory customs declarations for most commercial goods arriving in the region from Great Britain.

Concerns were also raised about the “competency” of some of the newly trained customs agents.

John Martin, from the Road Haulage Association (RHA), claimed some agents were “not competent to do the job”.

“They’ve been recruited towards the latter part of last year and there’s been insufficient time to enable those staff to be trained,” he told the Stormont Infrastructure Committee.

Chris Slowey, managing director of Manfreight, said members of his team were trying to learn from people who had only been in the job for 20 days.

He also recalled the first day of the new arrangements.

“We were the first vehicle off the ferries on January 1 in Northern Ireland, and we were the first vehicle stopped. Why we were stopped, we’re not quite sure,” he told MLAs.

His firm exports fresh produce from Northern Ireland, and brings back retail and parcels.

“We have seen a drop-off today of about 100 loads per week, that impacts on our bottom line directly to a value which makes the business unstable,” he said.

Paul Jackson of McBurney Transport said in 40 years of working in haulage, this had been the worst period he had seen, with the joint impact of Brexit and the coronavirus pandemic.

He said movements were 24% down on January 2020, and stated they were running out of trailers, with the cost of transporting empty trailers back in Northern Ireland.

“I can remember customs entries in 1980 … this is worse, this is much worse. We’re back to the Dark Ages,” he said.

“This is the most over-legislated, over-taxed industry in Northern Ireland here, and we are struggling.”

Seamus Leheny, of Logistics UK, said operators needed a grace period on checks as well as long-term solutions.

Moving mixed loads of food products, known as groupage, had proved to be the most challenging in terms of the new checks.