‘It is soul-destroying’: lorry drivers face hours stuck in queues at Dover
His lorry loaded with British Airways aircraft parts, Ivo Hradilik was expecting to drive onto a ferry headed to Calais, before delivering his cargo to the outskirts of Paris.
But there’s a problem with the customs paperwork, and the 26-year-old HGV driver from the Czech Republic will have to park up near the Port of Dover while the haulage company sorts everything out.
“From the new year it has got worse with the paperwork,” Hradilik said, clutching a handful of documents. He usually visits Dover five times a month bringing goods between Britain and the EU.
Hradilik expects to wait for hours before setting sail. On Wednesday, long queues of lorries built up once again on the approach roads to Dover, with as many as 100 vehicles waiting on the A20.
The sheer volume of HGVs meant the town’s emergency traffic management system was activated twice on Wednesday, once at 5am and again at midday. Known as TAP – Operation Travel Access Protocol – it can be triggered by a request from the port authority or the police to the National Highways agency.
Lorries heading for the port are required to stay in the left-hand lane of the A20 dual carriageway. Then small groups are called forward by a police officer stationed at the Aycliffe roundabout, once space becomes available at the port for them to enter the terminal.
According to National Highways, TAP has been activated 20 times so far this year, compared with 69 times for the whole of 2021.
The Port of Dover says the main cause is a spike in freight traffic, rather than Brexit. The drivers see things differently. Many blame the introduction on 1 January of the first controls on imports from the EU, and a new UK government IT system for goods entering and leaving the country.
“Since 1
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