Lorry drivers carrying fresh meat stuck in 24 hour queues
Brits could face major travel disruption over the Easter weekend as Dover delays lead to enormous border queues.
The suspension of P&O ferry services from Dover and Easter traffic mean families en route to Europe for a getaway as well as haulage vehicles are facing massive delays.
Lorry drivers have warned fresh produce is rotting in the back of vehicles sitting in nightmare queues for as long as 25 hours.
“Financial losses are terrible,” said Graham Eardley, the owner of Eardley International, a meat haulage firm. “We are literally talking about lamb carcasses hanging in their primary state in the back of a lorry.”
The Kent Resilience Forum, which manages Dover traffic, said it hopes to “reduce the impact of traffic” over the Easter Weekend. P&O rival DFDS is prepared to run additional ferry services if problems persist.
Kent County Council was poised to declare a “major incident” over the weekend as Dover queues gridlocked traffic. A 23-mile-stretch of the M20 has been closed to park waiting lorries with the measures expected to stay in place in the build up to Easter.
British lorries carrying perishable goods want to be prioritised at the port of Dover as enormous queues spoil products.
Traffic chaos at the port of Dover has been blamed on Brexit, the suspension of services by P&O Ferries and IT glitches.
The British Meat Processors Association has said members are being forced to wait for over 24 hours to cross, causing perishable products like meat to go bad.
“The priority for the authorities should be to help lorries with perishable goods get through as quickly as possible,” a spokesperson from the British Meat Processors Association told ITV News.
“Shelf life is being lost which costs money and creates waste and business will be lost if this continues,” the spokesperson continued.
“We need the authorities to review the situation as soon as possible and take some appropriate actions,” he added.
Problems with HMRC’s IT system for customs checks have added to congestion around the port of Dover. Yesterday, lorries were stuck in queues stretching for over 20 miles of the M20 because of the issues at Dover, causing heavy traffic in Kent.
The Dover District Council said it would declare “a major incident” if traffic disruption continues this weekend. While the situation has begun to ease Councillor Trevor Bartlett, Leader of Dover District Council, warned that issues at the border will be ongoing.
“This won’t be the last time we face this challenge, and we need a long-term solution,” he said.