Kentish Express Ashford & District
When will this madness end?
MP URGES TRANSPORT MINISTERS TO ACT QUICKLY
Ashford was gridlocked AGAIN yesterday (Wednesday) morning as Operation Stack created traffic problems for the second time in a week as a result of wildcat strikes by French workers.
Disruption has been widespread since Monday just days after normality had returned following the previous road chaos of last week.
The knock-on effect was enormous tailbacks for coastbound traffic at junctions 11a and 12 at the Channel Tunnel and Cheriton.
And yesterday morning the M20 London-bound was closed between junctions 10 and 9 by an accident, and closed to normal traffic between junctions 9 and 8 from Tuesday afternoon as the third stage of Operation Stack was implemented.
Frustrated Ashford MP Damian Green demanded action to end Ashford MP Damian Green has demanded action to end the Operation Stack mayhem.
He said: “We can’t put up with this any longer. There was a summit about Operation Stack in February and when I heard about it being implemented again this week, my first thought was, what has happened. the mayhem, saying: “We can’t put up with this any longer.”
The problems also caused the headache of illegal immigrants breaking into lorries stuck at Calais.
The first strike by French MyFerryLink workers over redundancies took place on Tuesday last week.
This led to the closure of the Port of Calais, meaning huge tailbacks in Kent, the implementation of Operation Stack and the havoc of migrants scrambling inside British-bound lorries in France.
“In a couple of weeks a report will go to transport ministers so we can crack on with doing something.
“I have alerted the ministers to the fact that they will be getting these proposals and urging them to act as quickly as they can so we don’t have to put up with this any longer.”
Problems repeated themselves from 2pm this Monday as the French workers downed tools again.
And the agony was drawn out with the French port not due to reopen until today (Thursday) – with a massive backlog of stranded HGVs to clear before any return to normal.
Adding to the misery was the disruption to Eurotunnel services in both directions after freight services were disrupted in a separate incident on Tuesday when Eurotunnel announced that its passenger services
Mr Green said he did not know what the proposals would be, but hoped some could be implemented as quickly as possible.
“Some things like building lorry parks will take longer, but we diverting lorries to other ports can be done quickly,” he said. had been suspended after protesters stormed the firm’s French terminal.
It’s believed they may have started a fire on the tracks near the entrance to the tunnel.
Eurotunnel said its passenger service was temporarily suspended due to a breach of terminal boundaries, but later the same day the company said the protesters had been removed and normal services resumed.
Folkestone and Hythe MP Damian Collins has called for foreign lorry drivers to be charged more to help cover the costs of the disruption.
He said: “There are costs for policing and costs for the county in putting Operation Stack in force. We do now charge foreign lorries for using our roads and maybe we should look at increasing that charge if there are more cases of Operation Stack.
“I don’t see why the strike action should lead the the entire closure of the Port of Calais.
“That is something the French authorities must stop and we need to see if we can do anything to help.
“What we have to make sure happens is that other services on the tunnel continue to remain in place.”
More lorry parking places are set to be built to help cope with Operation Stack in places like the Port of Dover and Channel Tunnel entrance and there are plans to create even more at junction 11 of the M20.
What do you think? Write to Kentish Express, 34-36 North Street, Ashford, TN24 8JR or email kentishexpress@thekmgroup.co.uk