Helen Grant MP

Constituency work, by its very nature, is territorial but there are several challenges MPs handle regionally including border control, counterterrorism and public transport. To that end I meet with my Kent colleagues regularly to address common issues.

One longstanding campaign constantly in the news is Operation Stack, which was first implemented way back in 1988. Almost three decades later a lorry park has been agreed as part of an alternative solution to Stack, a measure Kent colleagues have campaigned for successfully.

But we also believe a wider, more strategic, approach is needed to tackle congestion relating to the Channel ports that sometimes backs-up for miles along the M20.

Enter the Lower Thames Crossing; another old chestnut first mooted in 1989, with a decision to build expected later this year.

Colleagues support the proposed crossing but unless the traffic can be effectively delivered to and from that point, our county will be scarcely better off.

That is why Kent MPs have this week written to the chancellor and the transport secretary to raise two issues; dualling the A2 continuously between Dover and the M2 (to remove bottlenecks and dissuade drivers from using the M20 unnecessarily); and secondly, taking the route north of the