Committee publication · Correspondence · 1 April 2025
correspondence from Lucy Manzano, Head of Public Protection and Port Health, Dover Port Health Authority, regarding the Committee's visit to the Short Straits border, dated 21 March 2025
From: Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee
Inquiry: Animal and plant health
Summary
Lucy Manzano, Head of Port Health at Dover, thanks the EFRA Committee for their 18 March 2025 visit to the Short Straits border. She raises serious concerns that Border Target Operating Model (BTOM) implementation has increased illegal meat arrivals, created biosecurity gaps, and forced Sevington to use operational workarounds (auto-clearance, zero inspection frequencies) that prioritise trade flow over disease control. She argues the completed but unused Bastion facility should be deployed urgently to restore proper checks before ASF/FMD incursion.
Key findings
- Since BTOM implementation, Dover has experienced the sharpest increase in illegal meat arrivals, now called the 'illegal meat highway', raising questions about BTOM's actual biosecurity effectiveness.
- Sevington's insufficient building capacity forces system manipulations including auto-clearance and zero inspection frequencies to maintain trade flow, compromising biosecurity controls.
- The completed Bastion facility, designed for dynamic risk response and groupage load handling, remains unused despite being fit for purpose and having superior internal space compared to Sevington's design-limited buildings.
- Defra refuses to engage with suggestions for improvement, including temporary use of Bastion's van area, and has not provided transparency on auto-clearance volumes, hold variants, or inspection frequency data.
- During the recent FMD outbreak, Sevington's space constraints prevented mixed load splitting, forcing a high-value load to remain with driver for 15 days and requiring the CVO to intervene on German/non-German separation.
Tone
CriticalTopics
Key actors
Lucy Manzano, Dover Port Health Authority, EFRA Committee, Alistair Carmichael, Defra, Chief Veterinary Officer, Sevington
Notable line
“… since the BTOM's implementation we have seen the sharpest increase in illegal food/meat arrivals at this border, which worryingly is now referred to as the 'illegal meat highway'.”
Key Quotes
“Defra appear to have lost sight of Bastion's biosecurity value and purpose, disregarding the increasing need (since BTOM implementation) for a bio-secure facility within the area of the Port Health Authority (PHA) to enable it to effectively control the very border the authority is required to safeguard.”
“Bastion's functionality would ease Sevington's operational dependency on system manipulations such as auto-clearance, variants in holds, and setting many inspection frequencies to zero (in effect prioritising flow over biosecurity).”
“In practice Defra appear locked-in, and inflexible in their thinking and mindset towards this border, and concerningly without obvious appetite for inquiry or change.”
“… to split German and non- German elements within a load, as unlike other PHA's they are unwilling to do this and require all mixed loads to be returned or destroyed'.”
“'Port Health are our eyes, ears and checkers. They are the competent authority at the border .' As such I conclude …”
“With FMD/ASF creeping, change is urgently needed to close the gaps before it is too late.”
Source · parliament.uk record ↗