A FOOD retailer in Swindon says he fears the problems a no-deal Brexit could bring.

Colin Climpson of Swindon Pulse Wholefoods in Curtis Street said he had no room to stockpile goods if necessary.

“We can’t afford to stockpile because there’s no room for extra supplies here and a lot of what we sell has a fairly short shelf life so it would go off,” he said.

“We rely on our suppliers who import stock from all over the EU and the world, so if there is no deal, there’s not much we can do about it. It’s a risk we will have to take and it will affect us.

“It’s the government’s problem and it’s the government who caused this problem. We have stock that should see us through to next March, so if it’s not resolved by then, we’ll have to just see what happens.”

Simon Rhodes, owner of the Wood Street Food Hall in Old Town, is less concerned. He said: “This situation would not affect the food hall because all our products are English.

“We are trying to get back to traditional values where people buy locally and seasonally. It would be nice to see us support British farmers and fisherman as well as local artisan products.”

This follows the Food and Drink Federation pushing for aspects of competition law to be set aside in order for firms to coordinate and direct supplies with each other to best prepare for a possible no-deal Brexit.

Such cooperation is currently illegal but the FDF argued that it would be necessary to tackle likely food shortages by stockpiling.

Chief operating officer Tim Rycroft said: “In the event of no-deal disruption, if the government wants the food supply chain to work together to tackle likely shortages - to decide where to prioritise shipments - they will have to provide cast-iron written reassurances that competition law will not be strictly applied to those discussions.”

"We asked for reassurances at the end of last year but are still waiting."

The UK would reportedly need 30 huge empty warehouses to store even a week’s extra food supply and in November warehouses around the country would be full up of pre-existing stockpiling for Christmas.