Highways bosses have written to hundreds of landowners across Kent as they up their attempts to build a huge lorry park in the county.

The government is hoping to find a permanent solution to the woes of Operation Stack and has written to the owners of land close to the M20, A20, M2 and A2.

The revitalised search for a lorry park comes after plans for a £250 million site at Stanford near Hythe were dropped last autumn.

In the letters posted to landowners, Highways England officials seek permission to carry out ecological studies on their land.

If given the go-ahead to conduct their studies, the work will start in early 2019.

Highways England spokesman Richard Starkey said: "Alongside other work we are doing in Kent that will improve the county's resilience to cross-Channel disruption, we are continuing work to identify a permanent solution for Operation Stack.

"We carried out a public information and listening exercise in summer to seek people’s views on what this permanent solution could be.

"The next stage of this work is to carry out new, or update previous, studies at a range of locations to help us understand things like the ecology of the land.

"We have written to landowners asking for permission to do this.

"These studies do not indicate that any decisions have been taken, and we plan to put a more defined range of options to the public for their views again in the first half of next year."

The ecological surveys to be carried out on the potential sites will be looking for protected species such as great crested newts, barn owls, bats, dormice, badgers and otters.

In the event of problems getting traffic into Europe at Kent's ports and Eurotunnel, the govermment plans to introduce Operation Brock, an evolution of Operation Stack.

It would park lorries on the coastbound stretch of the M20 while setting up a contraflow on the London-bound side.

It is also looking at turning the M26 into a lorry park and has a long-running agreement to send some lorries to the former Manston airport site.