Seven "inland border facilities" were built across England and Wales after Brexit, but five of them never reached the operational stage. HMRC released the figures on the sites following a freedom of information request, and they show the UK spent at least £100m of taxpayers' money on Brexit border inspection posts that were never used.

The reason, according to the figures' release, is that the Conservative government scaled back EU border checks, judging that EU food standards had not changed.

Five of seven sites never operated

The five unused sites in England and Wales stand as monuments to that decision. The most controversial of them, known as "Dover white cliffs", was announced to residents of the village of Guston on 31 December 2020 - hours before the transition period ended. It has cost £28m while remaining a field: the Department for Transport paid £21m to procure the land and a further £7m on initial ground works, including an archaeological survey for Roman remains.

HMRC said Birmingham, Ebbsfleet and North Weald "did not require the acquisition of land".

What each site cost

The HMRC border post costs itemise spending at each unused facility:

• •Dover white cliffs: £28m in total - £21m for land, £7m on ground works.
• •Birmingham airport car park: £17m - £11m to build, £6m in closure costs.
• •Warrington: £17m - £7m to buy the former Shearings coach stop at Appleton Thorn, £9m to build and £1m to decommission. It was chosen because no suitable sites existed for lorries travelling from Ireland into Liverpool, Holyhead and Heysham.
• •Ebbsfleet Eurostar station car park: £10m - £4m to convert into a lorry park, £6m to close.
• •North Weald airfield, off the M11 south of Stansted: £5m - £3m to build, £2m to close. It was commandeered to avert congestion on the M25.

Warrington and Ebbsfleet together account for £20m of the spending, and the combined cost of the unused posts takes the total past £100m.

Ports that did open: Portsmouth and Sevington

Dover, an area of outstanding natural beauty, could not host the checks, so the government chose a site 20 miles inland at Sevington in Kent. Total capital costs for the Sevington border facility ran to £154m, including £30m for farmland between Sevington and Mersham and £70m to build.

At Holyhead, near the main road to the port receiving Irish goods, the site cost £14m to acquire and another £23m to build. At Portsmouth, the port - owned by the city council - spent £23m on building its border control post, which has never been used at full capacity. It received £17.1m in government funding, leaving the council to make up the £6m shortfall.

The Portsmouth border control post sees very little use. The port's director, Mike Sellers, said: "Two trailer checks take place on average each day ... compared with the 80 checks originally envisioned."

Calls for compensation

Sellers and Portsmouth city council's leader are among the ports calling on the government to provide compensation for redundant border posts when the UK-EU deal comes into force.

The asymmetry with the EU side is stark: the EU launched all the checks in Calais, Dublin and other European ports from day one, treating the UK as a third country. Eurotunnel spent €50m (£41.7m) on building the infrastructure for Brexit checks for trucks and €90m on changes for passengers, including an entry/exit system never activated by the French.

HMRC also revealed that operational costs of the border facilities have run to £179m - money that would not have been spent had Brexit not happened. The National Audit Office put the overall cost of Brexit at an estimated £4.7bn last year, including customs software transformation.

As the UK-EU deal moves toward taking force, ports that built for checks that never materialised are waiting to hear whether the government will cover what they now describe as redundant border posts.