Campaigners fighting a plan for a huge lorry park to deal with Operation Stack say it could be a soft target for terrorists.

Matthew Webb, chairman of Stanford Parish council, made the claim in a Facebook post yesterday.

He was responding to concerns about the potential terrorism risk to both Dover and Folkestone raised by a member of the group SOS Kent and posted in the aftermath of the Brussels atrocities.

In the posting, Mr Webb, who earlier this week was among witnesses giving evidence to the Commons select committee on transport on Operation Stack, wrote:

“A very large lorry park would obviously be an ideal “soft” target for terrorists. Any attack would be quite straightforward as security will be limited and lorries will not be searched as they enter because in a Stack scenario it would make the park unworkable.”

He added: “A bomb or multiple bombs within 4000 closely packed lorries would cause chaos, be very difficult for emergency services to respond to and very difficult to evacuate the park at speed.”

"A very large lorry park would obviously be an ideal “soft” target for terrorists. Any attack would be quite straightforward as security will be limited" - Matthew Webb

Highways England is weighing up two possible sites off the M20 near Folkestone as a possible emergency relief lorry park.

MPs were told this the lorry park would not on its own solve Operation Stack and a wider strategy that included a series of smaller round-the-clock parks was needed.

Meanwhile, UKIP Kent crime commissioner candidate Henry Bolton has backed claims that the terror attacks in Brussels underline the case for quitting the EU.

It follows a row caused by comments made by UKIP defence spokesman Mike Hookem.

He released a statement just hours after the Brussels attacks saying the “horrific act of terrorism shows that Schengen free movement and lax border controls are a threat to our security”.

Mr Bolton, a security expert, said it was not a simple issue but it was valid to argue there was a link between immigration and terrorism because it was difficult to track people who were moving between Schengen states.

He said: “If we left the EU, we would not leave the intelligence sharing mechanisms. It is not black and white and these are complex issues but for me, the answer is yes. Without these border controls, the intelligence agencies have more of a challenge monitoring the network of criminals,” he said.