What a Border Control Post approval means
A Border Control Post is a facility at an airport or port where APHA, or SASA in Scotland, carries out documentary, identity and physical checks on regulated goods. Each one is approved only for certain categories, and the code matters more than the airport name. P means plants, including plants for planting, rooted cuttings and tissue culture. PP means plant products such as cut flowers, fruit and vegetables. PP(WP) covers wood and wood products, including isolated bark. OO covers other objects. A live houseplant must enter through a facility holding P.
The PP-only traps
Two of the busiest names in UK air cargo will not clear a plant for planting. The Heathrow Perishable Centre in Building 588 on Sandringham Road, and Eurobip, are approved for PP only, even though other handlers at Heathrow hold P. Birmingham Airport is approved for PP only as well, so a consignment of plants for the Midlands should be routed through East Midlands Airport, where both the DHL and UPS terminals hold P. If your supplier or freight forwarder books a live plant into a PP-only shed, the consignment is held while it is moved or refused, and tropical plants do not wait well in a cold shed.
Notice windows and opening hours
Every consignment of High-Risk plants must be pre-notified on IPAFFS, with the phytosanitary certificate uploaded, at least four working hours before it arrives by air or roll-on roll-off ferry, and at least one working day before it arrives by sea container. Working hours are the post's hours, which vary widely. Gatwick's approved sheds run daily from 06:00 to midnight and Glasgow's Dnata facility is open around the clock, but Stansted's inspection window is Monday to Friday, 08:00 to 17:00, and the Edinburgh WFS facility is closed at weekends. A plant that lands on a Friday evening at either of those can sit in an unheated shed until Monday. Ask your supplier to ship early in the week.
What it costs
APHA charges £5.25 per phytosanitary certificate for the documentary check, plus identity and physical check fees when a consignment is selected. On top of that come the handler's charges: airline transit-shed fees at airports, port operator fees at seaports and express integrator brokerage at the FedEx, DHL and UPS hubs. Lorries entering through Dover or Eurotunnel are checked at the Sevington Inland Border Facility near Ashford, and every eligible commercial CHED-PP there pays the DEFRA Common User Charge of £29 per commodity line, capped at five lines or £145, whether or not it is inspected. Harwich, the Humber ports and Portsmouth charge their own port health fees instead, which is one reason Dutch nursery trolleys often come in through Harwich.
Choosing a route for a northern nursery
From our base near York, the nearest approved air entry for tropical mother stock is Manchester, where Dnata, Swissport and WFS all hold P. For continental stock and palletised substrates, the Humber ports at Killingholme, Immingham and Hull are the nearest maritime entry points, with inspection centres holding P. Deep-sea containers of coir and bark come in through Felixstowe, London Gateway or Tilbury, where the main port berths hold PP(WP) for timber and bark.
Those are routes we plan around so that customers do not have to. A plant reserved from our glasshouse has already been through one of these posts and spent its weeks settling under British light before it is passported and posted to you.
Before you book a shipment
Ask the supplier three questions in writing: which airport or port the consignment will land at, which handler shed it will be booked into, and which day of the week it will arrive. Then check the answers against the cards on this page. If the shed is not listed with P, if the arrival falls outside the post's hours, or if the route runs through Dover without the Common User Charge in your costing, change the booking before the plants are packed. A delay of a day in a warm shed is survivable for most aroids; a weekend in a cold one often is not, and no supplier guarantee covers a plant held at the border because of its paperwork.