The Department for Business and Trade estimates that exports to Ireland from the West Midlands accounted for £1.6bn in 2023.
To boost this important trade, Birmingham based road freight expert, Europa Road have launched a first of its kind service on all of its daily routes between the Republic of Ireland, designed to remove post-Brexit challenges.
Europa Road is a part of Britain’s largest independent international road freight provider Europa Worldwide Group and is based on Prologis Park Midpoint, Birmingham, employing around 100 people across the site. The company has recently invested over £1m in its infrastructure in Ireland to establish a dedicated team in Dublin and a specialist customs brokerage service to support this important new service.
From June 2024, Europa Flow will be available to all local businesses trading with Ireland, allowing them to better serve and grow their customers on the ‘Emerald Isle’.
Andrew Baxter, Chief Executive Officer of Europa Worldwide Group, said:
“With Ireland being Britain’s fourth largest export market, the increased complexity associated with the customs border, is preventing the seamless transportation of goods for British businesses.
“This is impacting transit times, increasing the amount of customs paperwork required, and could have costly and time-critical implications. These customs complexities pose a significant extra burden to all businesses – and particularly those SMEs who may be less likely to have the necessary resources and expertise to handle the additional paperwork.
“This is why we launched Europa Flow – to serve companies moving goods betweenBritain and Europe, providing a seamless transportation of goods between the two regions.Having initially launched Europa Flow in 2021 for mainland EU countries, the service – the first of its kind in Ireland – is now being launched to GB-Ireland trade.”
Europa Flow has successfully delivered over 300,000 DDP consignments to mainland Europe, offering a unique combination of DDP, postponed VAT accounting and anticipated declarations. Birmingham’s team of 35 support exporters across the West Midlands, providing faster transit times, lower costs, and no administrative headaches through Europa Flow.
One recent manufacturer has just trialled Europa Flow on its exports to Ireland, stating:
“The new DDP service from Europa has been well received by our current Irish customers,in that the admin burden imposed on them has significantly decreased. It has also reopened some customer conversations that have been closed since Brexit."
Europa Road, which operates Britain’s largest European groupage ‘1Hub’ in Dartford, now ships more than 50 per cent of its consignments using this innovative service. The 1Hub, which is strategically located close to the Dartford Crossing, provides scheduled, daily, road transport trunking, which allows British customers’ shipments to connect to its 42 partner hubs in mainland Europe.
Adrian Redmile, Branch and Sales Director at Europa Worldwide Group said:
“Despite the challenges that were presented as trade regulations changed post-Brexit, there is a cost-effective and efficient solution to ensuring seamless movement of goods. Over the last three years we have has invested over £1m in our Irish infrastructure, more than £5m in Europa Flow in Europe and launched a Money Back Guarantee to better support British customers.
“Europa Flow now provides a truly seamless service into Ireland for businesses across Great Britain. These companies recognise that they cannot gamble their reputations by risking delays to deliveries emanating from incomplete paperwork, or disputes over the payment of VAT and customs duties.
“The service is proven to removing these issues and return the market to pre-Brexit transit times. We are also the only provider with sites in Britain and in Ireland offering a Money Back Guarantee on all Europa Flow shipments. This unique offer will ensure full refunds for consignments not delivered on time.”
www.europa-worldwide.com