Dover blames queues on spike in freight traffic not Brexit
Long queues of lorries built up on approach roads to Dover this week because of a spike in freight traffic and not because of Brexit, the Port has said.
However, drivers on the road expressed fury over the delays, describing the situation as “absolute carnage” and blaming a mixture of delays in Brexit checks and Covid paperwork.
Highways England confirmed that high volumes of traffic had led to queues but with Brexit checks in place for more than a year, drivers were baffled as to why this week had been so bad.
The increase in freight traffic meant that the Operation Travel Access Protocol (TAP), a temporary traffic management system, which was devised for heavy traffic times in 2015, was put in place on Wednesday and Thursday leading to tailbacks on the A20.
Drivers were also reporting long delays at the inland border facility in Ashford where truckers must pre-notify French authorities of their cargo in order to get the goods vehicle movement certification necessary for boarding a ferry.
Some have blamed a new software system, now in operation, which could have led to additional teething problems in Ashford.
“A20 Dover TAP has indeed been in place for short periods of time this week. TAP is a well established and regularly used normal operational tool to help manage traffic flows into the Port of Dover at busy times and it has been for a number of years. This was the case yesterday as it has been similarly over the past few days,” said a spokesperson for the Port of Dover.
Freight traffic usually surges in the third week of January after the Christmas break but drivers said the delays this week caught many by surprise.
One driver, Ciaran Donovan, who has been posting about Brexit checks for the past three years, said it was
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