‘It’s a farce’: the giant Brexit border control site now used to inspect Ukrainian pets

The Sevington inland border facility near Ashford in Kent was built to handle checks needed for post-Brexit trade. Its lorry parks remain mostly empty. Photograph: Antonio Olmos

It is built on a vast 230-acre site, with a total cost put at more than £100m, and has space for 1,700 heavy goods vehicles. Security staff are on patrol at several checkpoints around its 12-foot-high perimeter fence. Inside are new state-of-the-art buildings and equipment for inspecting imports from Europe.

But more than six months after completion, this heavily guarded supposed showpiece of a newly independent Britain lies all but deserted. It is labelled by people who live nearby as the great white elephant of Brexit, spanking new but largely redundant. The only imports being inspected are a few pets from Ukraine.