This is no ordinary office, it’s the brexit bunker

pushed back to October 31 it was paused. After a break the process began again in May.

Now, as Westminster wrestles with what to do about Brexit, steps to make the bunker operational are go again.

“Right now we’re identifying staff who will be coming down here,” I’m told by a senior civil servant as we sit at the huge conference table.

“We’ll also be sending some staff to London. By 14 days before we will move some people down here and they’ll be working normal days.

“With two weeks to go we’ll be running it from 6am until 10pm to get ourselves into the rhythm and processing the information in the right way.

“Then, seven days before, we’ll go to 24/7 operation with three shifts of staff.”

It’s estimated by the time it’s fully operational there will be between 150 and 200 staff working in the bunker. The Welsh Government is now firmly planning for no deal.

“Our approach, as a Welsh Government, has been to plan and get the right processes in place across the public sector so that, whatever happens, we’re ready,” the same civil servant said.

There are, I’m told, two options as the October 31 deadline approaches.

One is that they “pull the red button” putting the whole emergency protocol into place and begin operating from the bunker.

Or they will stand staff down again as they had to in March. Perhaps permanently, perhaps for the foreseeable future.

There are whole teams of people whose job is to prepare for situations we would all consider at best unpalatable and at worst truly terrifying – terrorism, strikes, life-threatening weather.

Some of the things in place for Brexit would kick in if any of those