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Travellers face two-hour queues at Port of Dover

The Kent port said processing times for passing through checks by French border officials are two hours for coaches and one-and-a-half hours for cars.

Neil Lancefield
Friday 07 July 2023 10:29 BST
Travellers arriving in Dover for cross-Channel ferries are facing long queues (Andrew Matthews/PA)
Travellers arriving in Dover for cross-Channel ferries are facing long queues (Andrew Matthews/PA) (PA Archive)

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Travellers arriving in Dover for cross-Channel ferries are facing long queues.

The Kent port said processing times for passing through checks by French border officials are two hours for coaches and one-and-a-half hours for cars.

In a message to waiting passengers, the port stated: “Today is already proving a popular travel day at Dover, and the port is busy processing strong volumes of tourist traffic.

“Teams from the port, Police aux Frontieres and our ferry operators are working to get you through as swiftly as possible.”

Passengers were stuck on coaches for more than 10 hours at the start of the Easter school holiday period.

Delays in processing passengers have been blamed on French border officials carrying out extra checks and stamping UK passports following Brexit.

Dover TAP, designed to stop the port town being clogged up with traffic, has been put in place for lorries on Friday.

This involves freight traffic queuing on the left hand land of the A20 until there is space for them at the port.

Ferry operator DFDS said customers who miss their booked departure will be put on the next available sailing.

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