‘Gutted and livid’: parents vent anger over children caught in Dover chaos

theguardian.com:

Among those angered by the delays at Dover were parents of children setting off on school trips who had to wait for hours on coaches, in some cases only to have to turn back.

Nicola Eslick, 51, from Brighton, pointed the finger at those in charge of border controls after her 14-year-old son had his school trip cancelled on Sunday morning as a result of the chaos at Dover, approximately 14 hours after departing.

The coach left Brighton at 6pm on Saturday and spent all the night queueing at Dover before Eslick received an email on Sunday morning saying that the school had taken the difficult decision to cancel the trip to northern Italy and the children were on their way back.

She said it was particularly galling because her son, who is in year 10, had missed out on previous school trips because of the Covid pandemic. “Every trip was cancelled, and so this was the only trip [he could go on], because then next year is GCSE year, so we were pumped for this and he’s never been skiing before,” she said.

“I just feel so gutted for them. It’s such a shame, because sending them all off yesterday, there was such a sense of excitement that they were doing something normal again and that a sense of normality was returning after the pandemic years.”

She said her son told her that the children had only been let off the vehicle for one and a half hours.

Eslick said she did not buy the explanation from the home secretary, Suella Braverman, that “bad weather” was to blame. “No, it’s bad management all around,” she said. “ I don’t understand why the ports aren’t prepped for this. My personal view is this entirely comes down to the authorities in charge of our borders.

“I’ve read the press who’ve said that there’s more coaches than expected, but