Concerns raised over no-deal Brexit ferry firm owning no ships
Concerns about UK government plans to keep freight moving in the event of a no-deal Brexit grew on Monday when it emerged one of the companies given a £13.8m ferry contract does not own any ships.
Seaborne Freight, one of three companies given contracts worth £108m last week, had not previously operated a ferry service and was not planning to do so until the end of March – when Britain plans to leave the European Union.
The company planned to operate a twice-daily service from Ramsgate to the Belgian port of Ostend if the UK left the EU without a deal and Channel services at the main port of Dover came under pressure.
Ramsgate Conservative councillor Paul Messenger questioned whether the government had carried out sufficient checks on the firm.
“It has no ships and no trading history so how can due diligence be done? Why choose a company that never moved a single truck in their entire history and give them £14m? I don’t understand the logic of that,” he told the BBC.
Seaborne said it was in a "development phase" that included "locating suitable vessels, making arrangements with the ports of Ostend and Ramsgate, building the infrastructure, such as bunkering, as well as crewing the ferries once they start operating".
The Department for Transport said that the contract had been awarded in “the full knowledge that Seaborne is a new shipping provider and that the extra capacity and vessels would be provided as part of its first services”.
"As with all contracts, we carefully vetted the company’s commercial, technical and financial position in detail before making the award.”
Ferry services have not operated from Ramsgate Port since the collapse of TransEuropa in 2013. The government has also awarded contracts of about £47m each to Brittany Ferries and to DFDS of Denmark for routes between England and the Netherlands and Germany.