Plans for a huge lorry park off the M20 are only part of the solution to Operation Stack, according to a senior Labour figure.

Richard Burden, the shadow roads minister, visited Ashford on Wednesday to hear at first hand from businesses caught up in last summer’s disruption when Operation Stack was implemented for a record-breaking 32 days, gridlocking much of the county.

The meeting was organised by the Kent Invicta Chamber of Commerce.

Mr Burden said the government needed to consider an integrated approach to the road network which ensured traffic was kept moving.

Asked if he supported the £250m lorry park proposal at a site off the M20 near Stanford as a solution, he said: “Lorry parks have got to be part of the solution.

"The government is consulting - and rightly so - around the options for a site around Junction 11 and like everyone else I will wait to see what they come back with.”

But he added it would be wrong to rely solely on a huge park.

“It is not down to one park at one particular junction. Actually, we are badly served by lorry stops across the country that disrupts traffic and it is not very good for those whose livelihoods depend on driving trucks. Getting that network of trucks is important and we need to see how Junction 11 fits into that.”

He said the government appeared not to be acknowledging that “the agenda has got to be broader than that.”

“A lorry park may be part of that answer but I think what the Port of Dover and Eurotunnel are right about is that a single park is not the whole answer. A park by its very nature is where trucks stop but the solution for Kent is not about where trucks stop - it is about how you keep the traffic moving, whether that is keeping freight moving or local people moving.”

"A park by its very nature is where trucks stop but the solution for Kent is not about where trucks stop - it is about how you keep the traffic moving..." - shadow roads minister Richard Burden

He also criticised the government for its failure to set out what would happen if there was a repeat of last summer’s chronic disruption.

“The chances are that there is going to be real pressure on the system this year. That means we need to hear from the government what they are doing about that, about policing and keeping the traffic moving as effectively as it can.”

The site of Manston airfield has been put on standby if Op Stack does get implemented but has yet to be used.

Highways England is expected to set out which site would be its preferred option for a holding area for HGVs off the M20 shortly.

It has emerged recently that both the Port of Dover and Eurotunnel had expressed misgivings about the Stanford lorry park site off the M20.