Dover: Council will declare 'major incident' if travel disruption persists

A council says it is prepared to declare "a major incident" if traffic disruption around Dover continues into this weekend.

Traffic chaos has left some travellers queuing for hours since the start of the Easter break at the weekend.

In an open letter Dover District Council (DDC) leader Trevor Bartlett said the town would "not tolerate another weekend of gridlock".

Freight traffic continues to queue on the M20 and A20 in Kent..

The delays were initially caused by a shortage of ferries and bad weather as the holiday period began.

Mr Bartlett said: "We will be monitoring the situation closely throughout the weekend and I will not hesitate to authorise DDC officers to declare a major incident if we see signs of the sort of congestion witnessed last weekend."

Declaring a major incident would "force the issue" and "trigger a more robust response" from authorities, Mr Bartlett said.

He also raised concerns over how emergency services would be able to respond to a incidents if Dover continued to be cut off.

A 23-mile (37km) stretch of the M20 remains closed to accommodate queuing freight between junction eight (Maidstone) and eleven (Westernhanger/Hythe).

Authorities have implemented Operation Brock, a system which allows lorries heading to Dover to use one side of the M20, while all other traffic is restricted to a contraflow system on the opposite side.

But East Kent Highways say the system is holding 4,500 lorries, when it "normally has capacity for around 2,000".

Toby Howe, East Kent Highways manager, said there are "more lorries coming into the county at the moment than we can get out".

He said authorities need to prepare for further tourist traffic on Friday by bringing freight under control.

In a statement, the Port of Dover said it served 30,000 passengers during last weekend's disruption, triple that of the corresponding weekend last year.

The port added that it expected another busy weekend and urged passengers to check with ferry companies before their journey and to only arrive for their allotted sailing time.

P&O Ferries announced on Wednesday it was preparing to bring two of its vessels, Pride of Kent and Spirit of Britain, back into service between Dover and Calais "by next week", subject to inspection.

Meanwhile, the CEO of tourism body Visit Kent, Deirdre Wells, said she has written to all the county's MPs asking them to "urgently raise" the county's congestion issues with the Department for Transport and the prime minister.

Ms Wells said: "The situation on Kent's roads is quite frankly dire and risks damaging the image of our beautiful county and Global Britain."

Folkestone and Hythe MP Damian Collins told BBC South East the former Manston Airport site ought to be considered as a holding site for lorries again.

In December 2020 about 4,000 lorries were parked at the site, and another 2,300 were held on the M20, after the French closed their border with the UK during the pandemic.

Mr Collins said: "I think we do have to consider some of the measures that we've looked at before, like bringing Manston back into play. There was even a scenario where we could use the M26 to hold lorries.

"What we need to do is to try and find a way of restoring two-way flow of of passenger traffic on the M20. That's the best way of relieving the pressure on the local roads and getting things moving again."

Traffic delays stretch back to the M2 near Faversham, some 20 miles from the port, as non-freight traffic is advised to use the M2 and A2 while lorries queue on the M20.

Any lorries trying to use the M2/A2 to avoid joining the queues to Dover are being turned back by police.

Channel operator DFDS has tweeted to say it currently has two-hour delays on crossings between Dover and Calais.

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