Dover queues – live: Roads ‘extremely busy’ as passengers urged to bring supplies
High volume of traffic builds at port entrance
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Huge queues of holidaymakers are waiting on “extremely busy roads” close to the Port of Dover amid warnings of 90-minute delays.
Cars could be seen snaking from the Kent port to the nearby town after 11am on Good Friday, with lorries thought to be stretching back further.
P&O Ferries and operator DFDS were reporting delays of between 60 and 90 minutes to the port’s entrance while Irish Ferries advised people to allow up to three hours before their travel time.
Drivers have been advised to bring supplies in case they are left waiting for hours, with queues expected to lengthen in the early afternoon.
Doug Bannister, chief executive of the Port of Dover, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “It’s going to be a busy day, we’re running probably about an hour to an hour and a half to get through border controls at the moment, and we will peak through probably early afternoon, and then it will start to slow down after that.”
Trouble in Calais
DFDS has said in the past hour that there’s a wait time of an hour for coaches at Calais to complete all checks at port due to the high volume of traffic travelling this weekend.
P&O Ferries had a sailing from Calais to Dover last night delayed due to strike action in France.
In pictures: traffic builds up at Dover on Good Friday
Traffic is in full swing at the Port of Dover in Kent during the getaway for the Easter weekend.
Irish Ferries has warned passengers are expecting a three-hour wait for check-in.
Another Easter of travel chaos begins as queues build at Dover and France hit by strikes
Britons are facing travel chaos this weekend with flights grounded, trains cancelled and traffic already building up at Dover as the Easter weekend getaway begins.
The four days between Good Friday to Easter Monday are expected to be the busiest since 2019, with post-Brexit passport checks, railway works and strikes in France all set to cause delays for travellers.
For many, it will be a repeat of the disruption faced last Easter that was hit by airport staff shortages and cross-Channel hold-ups.
Our travel correspondent Simon Calder reports:
Another Easter of chaos begins with queues at Dover and French strikes
Wait for passport checks hits 90 minutes as national strike in France grounds flights
Lorry drivers told to prepare for long queues
Lorry drivers using the Port of Dover over Easter have been advised to bring supplies in case of long queues.
Nichola Mallon, of Logistics UK, told Sky News: “If they’re waiting considerable periods of time, that becomes a driver welfare issue and so that’s why we’re working very closely with the Kent resilience forum and to make sure that we can minimise delays.
“In fact, I have a number of meetings today as we closely monitor the situation and make sure that contingency plans are in place if needed, and people are working very hard on that.
“Our message to our members would be to check with your ferry operator to make sure that you’re aware of the latest guidance, make sure that you’ve completed all your paperwork before you head there and have supplies there, just in case, and make sure that you leave enough time to accommodate any delays.”
Simon Calder sets off to Calais
Our travel correspondent Simon Calder, also known as ‘the Man Who Pays His Way’ is heading to Calais this morning on one of the busiest weekends for travel in the year.
Here he is at Victoria station:
London Victoria railway station is extremely quiet: the half of the terminus that serves Gatwick airport and Brighton is closed because of rail engineering work.
But Victoria Coach Station, the main UK hub for long-distance bus travel, is extremely busy – partly because the West Coast main line is closed in the first 50 miles from London Euston.
At the Art Deco coach station, demand for supplies is so strong that many of the shelves at Pret a Manger are already empty.
On the road
Forget two-hour check-in for flights to Europe, or one-hour Eurostar deadlines.
Flixbus, which has sold me a ticket from London to Brussels for £61, suggests you arrive at least five minutes before departure – though just 120 seconds is enough. Hussein, the cheerful Belgian driver, checks tickets.
I am supposed to be in seat 7A, but it seems to be occupied, so instead I am in 18D – a window seat in the last-but-one row.
Departure is delayed due to one Liverpool-bound passenger discovering – in the nick of time – that he is on the wrong coach.
Traffic update from Simon
The M2 through north Kent is flowing freely in both directions, with a mix of cars, trucks and coaches.
The motoring organisations predict that Easter traffic will be especially heavy on Good Friday.
The worst jams are predicted to be on the western side of the M25; the M5 south of Bristol; the A303 in Wiltshire, near Stonehenge; approaches to the Lake District; and the M20 and A20 to Dover.
The best plan: avoid the middle of the day, which is when traffic will be heaviest. If you haven’t started out yet, consider postponing to later.
Simon Calder’s travel plan
I have a £61 ticket for Flixbus from London Victoria Coach Station to Brussels. The journey is scheduled to take nine hours and 10 minutes, with a stop at Lille in northern France along the way.
The ferry crossing is expected to be on DFDS from Dover to Calais at around 12 noon – though the company is warning of waits for border crossings 60-90 minutes.
Each of the 50 or so passengers on board must have their passport checked by French Police aux Frontieres at Dover, which is now a hard European Union frontier. So it may be that the ferry may be in early afternoon, and/or switched to Dunkirk – the other DFDS route from Dover.
I have no ticket back from the Continent, because frankly I have no idea when I might make landfall.
Sunshine express – the journey so far
Progress was sluggish from Victoria Coach Station through south-east London.
The coach paused to pick up passengers at Elephant & Castle – at what was once the start of E5 Trans-European Superhighway to Istanbul but which is now merely the New Kent Road/A2 towards Dover.
Blackheath was looking lovely, and soon the double-deck, acid-green Flixbus was on the M2 to the point in north Kent which is a “TOTSO” – where the driver, Hussein, had to Turn Off To Stay On the main road to Dover.
The mood on board has darkened since crossing the River Medway – which coincided with someone opening an overpoweringly pungent snack, which seems to be infused with weapons-grade garlic.
Cruise control
At the roundabout outside Dover where Jubilee Way begins its long, sweeping curve down to the ferry port, a police checkpoint is directing Europe-bound coaches away from the main road.
The bus stutters through the town, heading west instead of east towards the town.
I can’t help but wonder where I’m bound. But in the past few minutes DFDS Ferries has tweeted: “DOVER COACHES| DFDS Coaches travelling from Dover must go to Western Docks - Cruise terminal before arriving at Port of Dover”.
That may be the answer.
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