MPs have been told that plans for a lorry park 'the size of Disneyland' will not solve Operation Stack, and a wider transport strategy is needed to deal with the issue.

Members of the Commons Transport Select Committee heard today of reservations over the proposal for a £250m scheme and it would provide a permanent fix for the problem.

The committee was told while a park would go some way to addressing the issue, it was only one element of a wider set of steps that were needed.

Eurotunnel’s PR chief John Keefe said last summer’s disruption - which led to Operation Stack being in place for 32 days - was unique and not likely to be repeated.

And he warned traffic forecasts pointed to an increase that would outstrip the planned 3,600 places the park might offer now.

“We believe this is not a solution to what were a unique set of circumstances and does not take account of the long term trends [for increased road freight] we will have by 2020,” he said.

A wider strategy was needed as all the forecasts were for freight transport to grow. “This has to be done in a holistic way. When you look at the volume of traffic, we need something that will work across the whole system.”

Cllr Matthew Webb, chairman of Stanford Parish council, rejected claims by committee member Huw Merriman that the village was guilty of nimbyism.

Mr Webb said there were valid concerns about the environmental impact of fuel emissions which affected a far wider area.

He also warned commercial lorry park operators were stalling on their own expansion plans until they knew whether the park would be given the green light.

“Two lorry parks are putting on hold their expansion plans because of their fears of an Operation Stack state-funded lorry park. It is not worth spending £250m on a lorry park that is going to be used twice a year,” he said.

“We should be looking at the wider connectivity of getting across the channel. We manage to fly thousands of airplanes daily without crashing them; surely we can manage a few lorries? We need to solve the problems in a much more intelligent way.”

However, there was support for the park plan from Kent County Council cabinet member for transport Matthew Balfour.

He said the park was currently the only solution on the table. He invoked the infamous words of American vice president Donald Rumsfeld, saying there were "known unknowns."

“There is no guarantee that it will not happen again. The growth of traffic is happening at an exponential rate.

"Currently, the only solution we have is to park HGVs on the M20 in a holding area and that brings the motorway to a halt,” he said.

The proposal could also go some way to addressing the wider problem of illegal overnight parking in residential sidestreets and lay-bys, he added.

Asked if it should not be left to commercial lorry park operators to address the shortage of spaces, he said:

“We do need the big public sector gesture. If this was happening in Suffolk or Hampshire, I’d be saying this is a national problem.”

Natalie Chapman, policy director of the Freight Transport Association, told MPs the cost to the UK haulage industry was estimated to be £750,000 a day when Stack was in place.

“This is a huge problem for Kent and clearly last summer was an unprecedented situation for the county. We have to find a different solution.”

She warned that if the solution became too complex, hauliers would try to work round it.

The meeting concluded with committee chairman Louise Ellman asking if a lorry park the size of Disneyland was justifiable.

Cllr Matthew Balfour gave a firm yes but the committee was left in no doubt that there remain many question marks over the scheme.