One man has written to local politicians offering a plan to prevent future lorry snarl-ups.

This is now particularly feared through extra bureaucracy for hauliers following Brexit.

Mick Tedder's letter has gone to the MPs for Dover, Thanet, Folkestone, Canterbury, Ashford and Maidstone plus the leaders of Dover District Council and Kent County Council and to Dover Town Council.

Mr Tedder, 71, of Buckland Avenue, Dover, was a senior forwarding clerk at the town's freight forwarding company George Hammond Group from 1968 to 2011.

He has also been a community representative for the Port of Dover's Port Community Forum for six years.

Below is his detailed solution.

The future of Kent’s roads post Brexit - January 2021.

In the very late hours of December 31 we regained, so we are told, our national sovereignty.

This was one of the main successful arguments why so many accepted Brexit as the best way forward for us as a nation.

Whatever our individual opinions, the deed is done, and we now have to move forward and if you like start to recreate ourselves as the international trading nation it should be our collective ambition to become.

To do this we need to start on home soil by creating modern supporting infrastructures in road, rail and aviation sectors that will enable us to drive this forward along with the supporting Government agencies, Customs, DEFRA and Port Health that are all part of the same package.

We have to concentrate initially on the EU because, like them or not, they will remain one of our largest and most important trading partners certainly in the short term and no doubt well into the future.

A high percentage of EU trade, import and export, is handled by trucks via the channel terminals at the Port of Dover and the nearby Eurotunnel outside Folkestone.

Let us, for an uncomfortable moment, return to those chaotic times before Christmas where some 8,000 trucks were parked up and who knows how many others and private vehicles successfully brought the Port, town of Dover and many other roads in the area to a complete standstill for several days as well as necessitating the activation of operations Stack, Brock and Fennel.

For us in East Kent of course it is not the first time this type of disruption has occurred.

Such events have been going on for nearly a decade now and during this time we have not had a single coherent long-term plan from Central Government to resolve this issue once and for all but just a series of unrelated seemingly knee-jerk so-called initiatives.

With this in mind I would offer the following that I regard as a radical yet an EU/Macron future-proofed solution. The amount of agricultural land in particular required would be considerable but this is due entirely to continuous neglect of this festering issue by Central Government.

It is clear for Kent, in particular, we need a revolution in thinking and understanding of the issues and problems these trucks inflict on us locally.

I would suggest an immediate urgent major review of our Border infrastructure requirements as we cannot afford to have our Terminal links to the EU held hostage again.

Given the above I would offer the following equation to resolve this situation;

Stack + Brock + Fennel = MITS x 2 which will require the following to (re)solve.

A) The construction of two Mega International Truck Stops (MITS) each capable of holding 10,000 trucks.

B) Locations ~ the first on the coastbound M20 before and with a direct non-motorway link into the Channel Tunnel and ability to serve Dover Port via the M20/A20.

The second on the A2 outside Dover, again on the coastbound side just before the traffic lights and the Lydden/Coldred interchange.

C) Each MITS would have capacity to undertake Customs import clearances and examinations and process export documentation and contain their own Customs/DEFRA/Port Health facilities.

This would leave both Terminals to operate more or less as they did prior to Brexit or with minimal import/export

bureaucratic intervention.

D) Each site would have the capacity to develop Customs approved bonded warehouses that could open up groupage and transhipment possibilities.

E) Port of Dover/Tunnel/Ferry companies to jointly manage on an operational basis both sites as they would be responsible for calling forward trucks when suitable for their terminals to receive for vessels to load and local road

conditions allow.

F) Each site, via a third party, would provide a full range of facilities to cover truckers needs and would be run on a commercial basis.

G) ALL continental bound freight trucks/vans would have to report to one of the MITS for initial Customs check, ferry booking confirmation and, would only be released forward, on specific designated roads, when required at either terminal. This should remove the prospect of ‘hostage’ scenes witnessed before Christmas outside Dover Eastern Docks, hopefully extra police involvement and maybe even the end of Dover TAP?

H) In time of ‘heavy traffic’ trucks would only be released forward when main direct access roads ~ A20/A2 ~ were clear and Terminal facilities were available to process for loading keeping local roads free.

I) ALL continental bound freight would by law when entering Kent only be allowed on the M20/A20/M2/A2 or be in a MITS.

They have no reason to be anywhere else so in a single action should clear our roads and lay-bys of unwanted juggernauts. This will remove the requirement for permits to enter the County.

J) Finance – The constructions of both MITS to be paid for by Central Government as initially it is in the national, as well as local interest, they are developed and as quickly as possible.

Ongoing maintenance and running costs would be funded by a £2 levy, per freight unit in each direction, collected

by ferry companies with their freight costs and would include say 6/8 hours free time in the MITS or longer if road conditions require.

K) Acquisition of land for the MITS would seem to be straight forward given the Governments recent successful use of Special Development Orders at Sevington outside Ashford and Guston near Dover.

General observations are as follows:

a) Environment, quite rightly is a most important factor, but some time there has to be a trade-off between which is desirable and is regarded as the lesser of two evils and this I believe is such a case.

While both locations would involve the loss of farmland and habitat they are away from centres of population.

Sites at both Sevington and Guston as well as others being proposed are very close to existing homes who will be blighted with constant on going noise and other pollution issues. Two such MITS will allow the closure or abandonment of smaller truck parks located ad hoc all over the County and beyond, which must be a good thing.

b) With all freight destined for only two designated sites, should we find ourselves in a situation as we endured over Christmas when the French halted arrivals from the UK, demanding clear Covid tests, then all trucks will be in one of two locations to be dealt with, which means both our roads and terminals will remain clear and operational.

c) Manston took some 4,000 trucks during the recent French inspired Covid drama but is, subject to planning applications, due to be returned in the not-too-distant future to being an active airport that will provide a major financial boost to the Thanet area or even for housing.

Where will these 4,000 trucks now be accommodated the next time they cannot move freely to France?

d) It is essential for each MITS to have its own Customs/DEFRA/Port Health facilities.

This should not be an issue as Sevington and Guston, if completed will provide the ideal admin templates with MITS just being on a larger scale.

e) Compared to the Continent we seem to be well behind in looking after trucker’s welfare which is reflected by Ferries and Eurotunnel.

We depend on these trucks to bring a large percentage of what we as a nation need to survive on and MITS would certainly offer better conditions for all concerned.

I trust you find the above at least informative and is based on my working for an Agency within the Port of Dover for over 40 years where I have had involvement and experience in almost every aspect of Port life including Customs Clearance, as required even before we joined what later became the EU.

I would welcome any comments you might have, good or bad, and regard this paper as a realistic basis for discussion as, we have to start somewhere and to date I have seen nothing similar.

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