After thousands of families heading for France endured long delays over the weekend, concern is growing that congestion at Dover and Folkestone could continue through the summer.
At the start of the busiest holiday weekend since 2019, queues began to build at the port of Dover on Friday. As the weekend went on gridlock spread to the Eurotunnel terminal at Folkestone.
So what caused the chaos in Kent – and will it continue during the week and into the future? These are the key questions and answers.
How do international formalities work between Kent and France?
Before they can travel across to France, motorists and truck drivers must clear the “juxtaposed” French border at Dover or Folkestone – which means formalities are completed on UK soil, with no frontier on arrival in France. But the formalities mean queues can build up.
How are things running after the weekend?
More smoothly at both Dover and Folkestone, but there is still some catching up to do – many holidaymakers yesterday encountered long delays and some decided to stay overnight in Kent. The backlog has to be cleared swiftly because there is an awful lot of freight traffic that needs to get across to France.
Were such chaotic scenes predicted?
No one quite knew how the busiest weekend for outbound travel since 2019 – and Brexit – would play out. The expected rush last year didn’t materialise because at very short notice, just before the usual great getaway the UK government brought in mandatory quarantine for returning holidaymakers from France. So the new post-Brexit rules have simply not been tested at scale before.
How much responsibility lies with Eurotunnel, the Port of Dover and the ferry firms – did they fail to plan?
I see no evidence of that. These organisations are single-minded about process – acting as conveyor belts, one at Dover, one at Folkestone, to get people, cars, buses and trucks from the UK to Continental Europe as swiftly and smoothly as possible.
They prepared forecasts on how many vehicles and people were expected, and set up systems to cope. “We’ve been planning for the summer season for months,” I was told by Doug Bannister, chief executive of the Port of Dover.
So what went wrong?
The first sign that things were seriously awry was a statement put out by the Port of Dover at 7.30am on Friday morning. As the big weekend rush began on Friday, the port warned that holidays could be ruined because of “woefully inadequate” staffing by French border…
Click Here to Read the Full Original Article at The Independent Travel…