Union leaders, port officials and French authorities on Saturday highlighted the role of Brexit in the significant traffic difficulties encountered by British tourists on their way to the continent, with London persisting in incriminating France.
With the start of the school holidays in England and Wales, this weekend marks the first weekend of large outings without coronavirus-related traffic restrictions since Brexit came into force, synonymous with longer controls than when the United Kingdom was formed. part of the European Union. Union.
This Friday, many vacationers were trapped for hours before being able to access the port of Dover (southeast England), one of the main access points to the continent.
“The work has been done on the French side”
The director general of the port of Dover, Dough Bannister, who accused the French authorities of having underestimated the number of French police at the borders, stressed however that it must be recognized that “in a post-Brexit” delays to increase the shipment.
On the French side, the prefect of the Hauts-de-France region, Georges-François Leclerc, admitted a delay in the full implementation of the system scheduled for this Friday due to a signaling incident in the Channel Tunnel and a traffic accident in the M20 motorway.
“The work has been done on the French side” by reinforcing the workforce, which has gone from the usual 120 to 200 on summer weekends, during which 9 to 10,000 vehicles per day are expected, instead of the 4 to 5,000 usual, at-the-rocks.
“We discovered Brexit”
“Last year, there was Covid: we discovered Brexit” and its impact during peak days, the prefect noted, calling for the Port of Dover to take steps to increase the number of checkpoints.
On the occasion of these disturbances, press reports resurfaced on social networks according to which the British Government would have rejected, at the end of 2020, a proposal of 33 million pounds sterling to double the control capacity of the French side.
Despite explanations from the French authorities, British Chancellor Liz Truss, campaigning to succeed Prime Minister Boris Johnson, persisted in framing France.
Traffic problems continue.
But for Lucy Moreton of Britain’s ISU union, which represents border guards, the disruption is a “predictable” outcome of Brexit. “This is his chosen moment to strike,” she told the BBC.
If the difficulties in the vicinity of the port of Dover seemed to ease this Saturday afternoon, significant difficulties are reported in one of the axes that gives access to the port and the English Channel Tunnel.
“Three thousand lorries” are stored on the M20 motorway as part of a system put in place in the event of congestion at the border, Roger Gough, the Kent County President, said on BBC Radio 4 on Saturday morning.
Source: BFM TV
