Key cities member councils include major ports and manufacturing bases and we surveyed our members at the start of EU exit in 2021 to gauge the initial impacts.

Those responding found an increase in paperwork causing delays and increase in costs for imports and exports. There were supply chain issues with manufacturing having difficult sourcing components from Europe or from a huge increased cost for imports but some companies are switching to sourcing from within the UK.

Sourcing labour was an issue for some organisations used to recruiting from the EU and in particular for health and social care and hospitality due to immigration legislation requirements. Some areas were finding that companies were moving to Europe.

Key Cities will monitor the changes to import and export and impact on trade in our member cities.