For me, the last of the competing in Europe hoops to jump through was my European lorry inspection. I had finally managed to find all the paperwork and do the contingency plan for the UK Type 2 Transporter Certificate and done the EU Type 2 Transporter Certificate through Gills in Ireland, and had my lorry inspected in the UK, so I booked the ferry and booked in at European Horse Services off I went. All the appointments with EHS are at 8.30 am, necessitating leaving the UK the day before.

The first job was to get a COVID test at Clacket Lane. Having survived the incredibly competitive lorry parking - think Tesco’s car park on Christmas Eve, but with trucks, the actual test was quick, easy and very efficient. But then the fun began. I imagine the M20 was built to expedite getting trucks to Dover, but post Brexit HGV’s can’t use it - they have to use all the old A roads in Kent, which extends a journey that should be one hour by 40 minutes. With an empty truck I didn’t have to negotiate customs, but I couldn’t believe how many trucks were at Manton waiting to do customs. Eventually I arrived in Dover and joined the queue to get into the port. Five hours later I was on the ferry!

I had a quick drive to European Horse Services in Ostend, arriving just after 11pm. I couldn’t find anywhere to hook up, so I spent a truly freezing night in the car park there. When I got up in the morning I discovered that I’d left the outside light on all night, so I had a flat leisure battery which mean the fans weren’t working, however one of the kind ladies at EHS let me hook up to the main building an recharge everything before the inspectors arrived .

The things that are checked are:

Your CCTV needs to be working.
Your fans need to work, independently of the engine and be capable of working for 4 hours without the engine running. You need a letter from either your horsebox manufacturer, or the fan manufacturer, or preferably both to show to the inspector.
You need to know the voltage of the fans (12v) and how many cubic meters of air they move per minute
You need to know the capacity of your water tank.
You need lashing points every three metres - for most people this has mean putting more lashing points on their lorries
You need a thermometer in the horse area that records to your iphone, and you need to be able to print the record out from your phone.
The ramp needs to be no steeper than 20 degrees. In the UK the inspector measures this with a protractor, the Belgian Inspector measures the length and height of the ramp and then works it out at home - which takes about 2 days.
They also measure the capacity of the lorry to make sure the individual partitions are big enough for the horses - I think all decent lorries pass this part.
If you carry unregistered horses (not horses with an FEI passport) you also need a SatNav that records your journey and also records when any doors or ramps were opened.
Make sure you have a working OBU before you enter Belgium. The penalty for driving without an OBU is 500 Euros and they are very hot on this post Brexit.
Fill in your passenger locator form before you start coming home. I wasn’t asked for mine, but people have been pulled up and sent to the back of the queue if they haven’t got it. Take advice on how to fill it in as a freight driver so you don’t have to buy the government’s £250 testing package.

Having done all of this and paid for my inspection and the 500 Euro annual contract I was on my way back to Calais by 11.00 am. 90 minutes later I was back in a queue, this time in Calais.

It took another five hours of queuing, to get into the port, and then once in the port before I was back on the ferry and on my way back to the UK. I don’t think I have ever been quite so glad to see the M20, which luckily is open to lorries wanting to travel westbound. After a very foggy drive I was home at 9.30 pm, another journey that took over 11 hours.

The various qualifications and inspections last for five years, so I am pleased that they are done, and hoping we get a chance to use them before the end of the year. The whole experience has made me fairly wary of trying to get to Europe with horses for the moment. There is a tremendous amount of work going on to try to expedite the passage of horses through the various customs points between the UK and Europe, and fingers firmly crossed all of this will come to something so that, whatever the politics, horses are not on lorries for 12 hours and more just to get as far as Calais - a trip that was a maximum of 5 hours for us pre-Brexit.

European Lorry Inspection