Hornby blames Brexit ‘chaos’ as it pauses all non-UK orders until next year
Uncertainty around EU departure as well as congestion at ports causes model train company to stop shipping products
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Your support makes all the difference.Model train maker Hornby has paused all non-UK orders until January due to "chaos" ahead of the 31 December Brexit deadline.
With little more than two weeks to go until the transition period ends, companies still do not know what terms they will be trading under with EU customers and suppliers.
Announcing that orders had been halted, Hornby tweeted: "We hope you can understand the difficult position we are in and remain patient with us until we can find a solution."
The company's chief executive Lyndon Davies told the BBC's Today programme: "Within Europe people are already asking us: 'If I buy something, are those tariffs already included in your pricing?' Because we don't know what's going to happen, it's just a very difficult position."
Congestion at UK ports including Felixstowe and Southampton is also causing delays, Mr Davies said.
"I had a ship that should have arrived three weeks ago with Batman vs Joker Micro Scalextric sets. They've travelled the world. They've been to Rotterdam, Rotterdam was busy. We couldn't get a truck. You imagine that on multiple companies," Mr Davies said.
"You've got a pandemic, you've got Brexit, you've got a container shortage, it's chaos."
He added: "We as a country, we're shuffling the deck chairs as the Titanic is sinking. People who are having these talks just don't understand how the real world operates. They think at the last minute they can come up with a solution. People are going to be losing jobs."
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