Kent M20 Operation Stack: Government 'should take lead'

Stack is when lorries waiting to cross the Channel park on the M20

The government needs to take the lead on dealing with disruption caused by Operation Stack, a Kent MP has said.

Operation Stack is when lorries park on the M20 during cross-Channel disruption, and has been used in recent weeks because of French strike action.

Damian Collins, MP for Folkestone and Hythe, said the problem was too big for Kent authorities to deal with.

Kent MPs met Home Secretary Theresa May on Tuesday. The government has not commented to the BBC.

Mr Collins said there would be further talks with Kent County Council on Friday.

He said: "We can create solutions in Kent to provide resilience to provide extra lorry parking.

"That will cope with the minor incidents of Operation Stack and we can deal with that.

"But major delays of several days or a week or more - that requires the government to step in."

He said Theresa May absolutely understood the seriousness of the problem.

'Further disruption ahead'

Faversham and Mid Kent MP Helen Whately said proposals discussed with the Home Secretary included lorry parks, making more use of service stations, opening up ferry routes to Dunkirk, and alerting hauliers about disruption before they reached Kent.

She said there was a risk of further major disruption this summer and MPs needed to keep working on the problem while parliament was in recess.

Stack was brought in again on Wednesday because of a heavy volume of traffic heading towards Dover port and Eurotunnel at Folkestone.

Eurotunnel has called on the French and British governments to help pay the cost of additional security as migrants try to smuggle themselves to the UK.

It has asked for £6.8m, saying it had spent £9.1m on security measures in the first six months of this year.

The UK has already agreed to pay Eurotunnel £3.3m.