Man the life rafts

￡3.14 million: it’s a deliciously grand figure for a promised pot of cash to support communities of major ports in the UK that will be impacted the most by Britain’s departure from the European Union. But it may as well have come with some fairy dust and a magic wand.

While a few million pounds may sound significant, once the cash is apportioned out between all ‘ports’ of entry, including airports and rail terminus, it doesn’t look anywhere near as attractive.

In fact, it boils down to ￡136,362 per major port of entry.

Ten seaports appear on the payee list: Dover, Ramsgate, Goole, Hull, Grimsby, Immingham, Portsmouth, Southampton, Harwich and Felixstowe. The money will be given to the councils across England that house each major port of entry.

The funding is designed to allow those councils to increase their resources to work through the immediate impacts from Brexit in their local areas such as “ensuring their port’s resilience and potential impacts of greater traffic to surrounding communities”.

Unlikely much, if any, will actually end up at the port itself. Added to which, the amount is laughable given the scale of the Brexit problem and that the ports themselves will have very little say in how that paltry sum gets spent.

The allocations selection process has also drawn criticism. The choice of ports was based on a number of factors including the amount of EU goods each port area receives into the country and its “wider importance to the UK’s global trade network”. That latter, more subjective statement has meant that Southampton port will be given a double allocation, one for its main docks and another for its container terminal, much to the chagrin of neighbouring councils.

But even with a double dose of the funding, you can’t throw money at a problem to make it go away, especially when you don’t know exactly what the problem is or how the ripple effect will affect your operations.

With Brexit preparations reaching fever pitch in the UK, there are just over four weeks until the exit date of March 29. Confusion among politicians, populace and ports is rife and token gesture cash commitments will not divert this ship from its collision course. Better head for the muster stations.