Questions raised after ferry contract awarded to company with no ships

Questions have been raised over the government’s preparations for a no-deal Brexit, after it emerged a £13.8 million contract to run extra ferries has been handed to a company with no ships which has not previously operated a service.

Seaborne Freight was one of three companies awarded contracts totalling £108m last week to lay on additional crossings to ease the pressure on Dover.

The company aims to operate freight ferries from Ramsgate to the Belgian port of Ostend, beginning with two ships in late March and increasing to four by the end of the summer.

But a Conservative county councillor for the Kent port town said he did not believe it would be possible to set up a new service from Ramsgate by the scheduled date of Brexit on 29 March.

And Paul Messenger questioned whether the government had carried out sufficient checks on the firm, saying: “It has no ships and no trading history so how can due diligence be done?

“Why choose a company that never moved a single truck in their entire history and give them £14m? id on’ t understand the logic of that.”

Seaborne was established two years ago and has been in negotiations about running freight ferries between Ramsgate and Ostend, but no services are currently running.

Narrow berths in the port mean there are few suitable commercial vessels available.

The company said it had been working since 2017 on plans to reintroduce ferry sailings from Ramsgate from early 2019. The business has been “financed by the shareholders” during a development phase involving “locating suitable vessels, making arrangements with the ports of Ostend and Ramsgate, building the infrastructure as well as crewing the ferries once they start operating”.