FULL STATEMENT FROM PORTSMOUTH CITY COUNCIL

MONEY SPENT Amount spent by Portsmouth City Council on preparations for the UK leaving the EU without a deal is £1,007,584.38. This was all to mitigate dealing with traffic congestion on the area’s road network from any delays in processing vehicles at Portsmouth International Port and expected additional traffic to the port.

It includes £492,584.38 to create a HGV parking area in the north of the city and £150,000 for partial implementation of changes to the road network.

This is money spent so far, there will be further costs to implement changes to the road network if the UK were to leave the EU without a deal such as creating checkpoints for lorries and there would be ongoing running costs for managing this and the parking area.

Hampshire County Council has also spent money on preparations specifically to manage traffic heading to Portsmouth International Port by creating a triage point on the A31- they would need to be asked about the cost of this and what the ongoing running costs would be.

MONEY RECEIVED BEFORE 21 AUGUST 2019 Along with all unitary authorities, Portsmouth received £105,000 from government last year and another £105,000 this year, in addition to £136,362 given to the city as a port, but none of this money is based on an area’s specific Brexit needs. For example, Hampshire’s Local Resilience Forum (which has been coordinating this issue across the region) identified an issue with Portsmouth not Southampton, but government has given Southampton twice as much money for its port.

If we need to re-initiate our plans for leaving the EU without a deal there will be additional costs to put it in place and ongoing running costs.