Dover has again been hit by gridlock as huge queues of vehicles block miles of roads near the busy port, with bad weather and ferry shortages blamed for the delays.
Motorists have complained of being stuck in traffic for hours, after disruption to ferry services to Calais and Dunkirk caused huge tailbacks stretching into the town and blocking road access for local residents.
The Department for Transport (DfT) has said it is aware of the situation, and ministers are understood to be scrambling to arrange for other operators to patch the gaps left by P&O Ferries, which is yet to be given permission to sail to France with cheaper agency staff after outrage over its recent mass sacking.
Furthermore, sections of the M20 motorway is being used to park lorries and remain closed except to freight vehicles under Operation Brock – the system created under emergency powers to manage traffic disruption caused by post-Brexit paperwork issues.
The traffic management system was reintroduced between junctions eight and nine last month in anticipation of disruption as a result of the suspension of P&O services, after it fired 800 employees over videolink last month.
The fresh travel chaos, which began on Friday, has been blamed in part on bad weather, which has disrupted ferry services from Dover.
Ferry operator DFDS announced “delays on all of our crossings” on Friday as a result of “adverse weather conditions and technical issues”, with one of its ships receiving repairs after hitting a berth in Dunkirk during high winds on Thursday evening.
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In a statement, reported by The Guardian, the Port of Dover said: “The main approach roads to the port are currently very busy. The ongoing impact of the lack of any P&O services continues to affect remaining ferry operations with the commencement of the Easter getaway period.
“Operators are working hard to process the traffic, clear local congestion and get people on their way as swiftly as possible. Tourist traffic continues to move through the port.”
Shortly before 8am, one social media user told DFDS that their son had been stuck on a coach since leaving school in North London at 5.15pm the previous day, and was “still in the queue at Dover”.
Another woman wrote that she had “now been sitting waiting for over five hours in a queue at Dover waiting to get on” a ferry, adding: “What a fiasco.”
Meanwhile, bus operator Stagecoach has warned its customers to “expect severe disruption” to its services in Dover on Saturday.
“Freight traffic is now parked on the main road A256 from Crabble Hill all the way into town,” the company said on Twitter, adding that a number of major thoroughfares through the town “are currently inaccessible”.
A DfT spokesperson said: “We are aware of queues at Dover, and the Kent Resilience Forum and local partners are working to minimise any disruption by deploying temporary traffic management measures as standard.
“This has been caused by a number of factors, including severe weather in the Channel.”