Portsmouth’s £25m border post stands empty after minister’s imports U-turn

Portsmouth’s facility has 14 lorry bays, as well as sterile areas and air-lock quarantine zones. Photograph: Jill Mead/The Guardian

Next to the container terminal at Portsmouth International Port, just a few hundred metres from the water’s edge, stands a new hi-tech border control post.

Built over the past 18 months at a cost of £25m, a cost shared by the taxpayer and the port’s owner, Portsmouth city council, the high-specification facility should be in its inaugural week of use, handling post-Brexit checks on imports of animal, plant and forestry products arriving from the EU.