The head of a tourism group has written directly to the prime minister demanding action over last weekend’s traffic mayhem.

Martina White, interim chairman of Destination Dover in Charlton Green, has told Theresa May that the latest disruption was the “last straw.”

She is calling for a permanent solution with help such as proper signage and traffic management and provisions such as water and toilets for those stranded.

As many as 250,000 drivers were stuck for as long as 12 hours from Friday night into Saturday during Dover’s busiest travelling weekend of the year, just after schools broke up for holidays.

She said in an open letter to Mrs May yesterday: “For some while now the residents and workers in and around this premier UK port have had to put up with all the fallout from Operation Stack and we see very little sign of any real action, resulting in continued poor quality of life for the people here in this area.

“The disruption of this weekend is the last straw.

"We here in Dover are trying very hard to improve our economic environment following years of decline and when we see over a period of a few short hours all that effort dashed it is a devastating blow to our confidence.

"Many folk are reported as saying they see this as Dover's fault. We know it isn’t.”

The delays had been triggered by heightened security checks by French border staff following the terrorist massacre in Nice, the third such major attack in the country in 18 months.

But overnight and Friday and Saturday only three out of seven of the French control booths were manned and at one stage only one member of staff was checking hundreds of lorries.

Drivers and their passengers were left stranded in hot weather, often without food and water and having to sleep in their vehicles overnight.

But Ms White believes it was British authorities and agencies who hadn’t responded adequately.

She wrote :”As a prime gateway into and out of our country we fully understand the need to ensure our borders are secure. Likewise we respect the same requirement from other nations.

"However it is our understanding, following the advice from the French of their intentions to raise the level of security checks at Dover, we here, our government, its agencies and other authorities appear to have done very little, taken no immediate action, perhaps considering it a case of ‘C’est la vie’.

“We have strategic plans for other situations, surely there should be a plan for what to all intents and purposes was a border closure.”

Ms White stressed that the chaos had also affected thousands of companies relying of freight transport.

In Dover daily life and business came to a standstill and community events were severely disrupted.

She wrote: “Folk from Dover and its environs need to be assured that urgent attention will be given to ensuring that such a level of disruption can never happen again.”

Ms White is asking for:

- A fully functioning signage system for traffic management on the approach roads starting as far as Essex and west London.

- Accurate and up to the minute date for media and other information channels.

- The provision of toilet facilities, water, blankets and other necessities for those stranded, particularly overnight.

- Plans to support the French border police at times of high traffic volumes.

She said that Destination Dover is working with the tourism industry and the Pas-de-Calais department they would jointly come back with more ideas to ease problems, which would be “concrete, practical and low cost".