Kent County Council says its costs for dealing with Operation Stack last summer amounted to more than £60,000 - and there is no prospect of getting the money back from the government.

Cllr Matthew Balfour, the Conservative cabinet member for transport at KCC, said the final bill run up by the authority and other councils was likely be much higher.

The figures were disclosed to county councillors this week and come after Kent’s newly-elected crime commissioner Matthew Scott said he would be pushing the government to reimburse the £576,000 it cost Kent Police to deal with last summer’s disruption.

Cllr Balfour said the costs to KCC staff dealing with the crisis from its emergency unit amounted to £47,503 while £12,500 was spent on road signs alerting drivers to the closure of the M20 and to divert them on to other roads.

However, that did not represent the whole sum as there were other costs incurred by KCC and district councils.

These included the clear-up costs when Operation Stack was lifted and the costs of bringing food and water to hauliers stuck on the M20 during the 29 days it was in place for last summer.

He said: “As well as the multi-agency resources required to maintain operations, officer time was engaged in the command and control of the response during the period an emergency was declared under the Civil Contingencies Act 2004.”

Money had additionally been spent “managing media and communications to the public” while district councils – notably Dover, Shepway, Ashford and Maidstone – had also incurred further costs from the clean-up operations, he said.

Cllr Balfour said there had been no recovery of any of that money from the government so “the cost of Operation Stack has been borne by each agency and, ultimately, the Kent taxpayer.”

The government is expected to announce shortly its preferred site for a permanent lorry park off the M20 at Stanford, near Folkestone which would have the capacity of holding 3,600 HGVs.

However, a decision on that may now have to be deferred until after the EU referendum because of what are known as “purdah” rules.

These prevent governments and councils from announcing decisions which could be considered politically partial during an election campaign.