Seven hours to get three miles
Misery for thousands of holidaymakers caught in nightmare jams as M20 closure adds to chaos caused by shortage of French border staff at Dover
HOLIDAYMAKERS heading to France endured another day of misery yesterday with traffic jams of up to nine hours.
After the huge queues of cars and lorries at the Port of Dover on Friday, the worst disruption yesterday centred on gridlocked roads leading to Eurotunnel’s terminal near Folkestone.
Tens of thousands of exasperated families were caught up in the chaos which began when French passport staff failed to turn up to work on Friday morning, but escalated when first an accident and then queuing lorries forced the M20 to close.
Britain’s road network came under intense pressure with 18.8million journeys made in the biggest summer getaway in eight years.
Nikki Allford, 31, and her three daughters aged five, eight and 12, left their home in Hertfordshire at 11.30pm on Friday for a trip to Disneyland Paris. They got stuck in traffic in Kent at 2.30am and did not board a Channel Tunnel train until 11.15am.
‘It’s a bit of a free-for-all now as there are so many delays there is no real way of tracking who’s getting on what train,’ she told The Mail on Sunday as they drove on to the train. ‘This is our first holiday since pre-Covid, so we are desperate to get there.’
Rea Pope, a science teacher from Reigate, Surrey, was stranded in the queue outside Eurotunnel’s terminal in Folkestone for more than six hours – with traffic taking 90 minutes to crawl just 100 yards. ‘We arrived in the traffic one mile away at 5am and we are still stuck in it,’ she wrote on Twitter just before 11am.
Caroline Lynsey left her home in Cambridge at 3am but did not reach the passport booths at the Eurotunnel terminal until around midday – nine hours later. She estimated it had taken seven hours to travel just three miles. ‘Seriously, don’t bother coming near here today, change your tickets,’ she wrote in a post on Facebook.
John Keefe, of Eurotunnel, said the chaos near Folkestone had largely been caused by a serious accident on the M20 on Friday morning, which meant no traffic entered the terminal for three hours. A huge queue of lorries also formed because of chaos at Dover.
About 3,000 lorries remained parked on the M20 yesterday, forcing holidaymakers with Eurotunnel bookings to use a single lane of the A20. A queue of lorries and cars became gridlocked at Castle Hill roundabout near the terminal. ‘That part of the journey is taking a very long time,’ Mr Keefe said. ‘Once in the terminal, everything is fine.’
For a second consecutive day, people trying to travel by ferry from Dover suffered long delays. P&O Ferries urged travellers to allow three to four hours to get there and clear security checks.
The fiasco began early on Friday when French border officials operated just six of their 12 booths at Dover. All of the booths were manned yesterday.
Among those affected were pensioners Paul and Wendy Nicholas who were heading to Cologne to join a river cruise. They got to the port by train but the coach they had to catch got caught in a huge traffic jam 18 miles outside Dover. ‘We’ve no idea when the coach is going to get here,’ said Mr Nicholas, a former assistant chief constable. ‘It’s been a disaster.’
Their misery came after a French politician blamed Brexit for the delays. Pierre-Henri Dumont, a Republican MP for Calais, claimed that the British Government rejected a proposal to double the number of passport booths for French police at Dover a few months ago. ‘No need to blame French authorities for the traffic jams in Dover, that’s an aftermath of Brexit,’ Mr Dumont tweeted.
Last night British Government sources dismissed the claim, insisting that it was shortage of French staff – not lack of passport booths – that was the problem. A source said: ‘Additional booths were installed ahead of the weekend but have not been fully utilised.’
Having initially been critical of the French, Doug Bannister, chief executive of the Port of Dover, suddenly changed tack yesterday to blame post-Brexit passport rules.