TheThinWhiteDuke- Registered: 7 Jul 2016
- Posts: 335
Ken Tranter wrote:Security in Calais is a joke. If you are in what is called a 'hard sided' vehicle you will be physically checked, but in a soft sided one which are by far the majority you go through an alleged x ray. The vast majority are still not secured from intruders before entering the docks.
I will keep saying this until I am blue in the face '' NO VEHICLE SHOULD ENTER CALAIS UNTIL THEY ARE FITTED WITH SECURITY CORDS''
In the past a message of this nature would soon reach those of influence and acted upon, but sadly this no longer happens.
You'd think that someone would legislate for this wouldn't you? Why not go further and ban unsecured vehicles from entering the UK entirely?
I feel a lot of companies/drivers take the view that, if someone wants to get into a soft sided vehicle, then better they do it by just opening the back doors than having hundreds of pounds worth of damage done to their curtains and tilt cords. You'd think they'd be more concerned about damage to or theft of their load.
You forgot the sniffer dogs at the berths.
Button- Location: Dover
- Registered: 22 Jul 2016
- Posts: 2,900
Because at the moment there is little or no distinction between UK domestic journeys and those involving the UK and another EU Member State, so you seal all or none. However, in the years ahead...
(Not my real name.)
howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
The problem still hasn't completely gone away and I suspect numbers will grow now that Spring is here.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/apr/02/refugees-gather-calais-camp-unaccompanied-childrenCaptain Haddock- Location: Marlinspike Hall
- Registered: 8 Oct 2012
- Posts: 7,482
Readers will be pleased to know that not only has it not 'gone away' but the taxi service for wet Africans is going from strength to strength (181,436 migrants last year - a new record) .
The service has been much improved and now they will almost pick you up from the beach which saves the danger and means you can re-cycle the inflatables.
Just because the newspapers are keeping you all excited about the latest moral panic (Trump, Goodwin Sands dredging, Brexit, the wee Krankie Woman, burgundy coloured passports causing cancer - the latter article was in the Daily Express!) does not mean the problem has gone away.
https://www.spectator.com.au/2017/04/the-rescue-racket/'If no one went no faster than what I do there'd be a sight less trouble in this world'
John Buckley- Registered: 6 Oct 2013
- Posts: 615
The Aussies didn't seem to have this problem when faced with numerous " boat " people.
But hey, don't worry, that institution commonly known as the " EU " will come together with umpteen other like minded countries and solve the problem because that's what they're there for, apparently!
howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
Courtesy of the Telegraph, it appears that the Afghans and Kurds don't hit it off.
Hundreds of Iraqi Kurds trudged into a hypermarket car park in a suburb of the ferry port of Dunkirk, with their belongings bundled into binliners, blankets and shopping trolleys.
Shoppers gaped as the migrants, including dozens of families with young children, disappeared into woodland behind the retail complex, where they set up a makeshift camp.
They were displaced from France’s biggest official migrants’ camp, in Grande-Synthe, just outside Dunkirk, after it was deliberately burned to the ground on Monday night during a fight between Afghans and Kurds.
Since then, migrants have been playing a cat-and-mouse game with the French authorities, who are determined to stop them setting up illegal settlements along the coast as they pursue their quest to slip across the Channel to Britain.
The Kurds had spurned officials’ entreaties to board buses for accommodation centres for asylum seekers in other parts of France, preferring to try to establish a new camp on their own.
“The centres are too far from the coast,” said Omar Ali, 20, who has stowed away in UK-bound lorries dozens of times only to be turned back by border police.
As he struggled to pitch a tent provided by British charity volunteers in a clearing behind the shopping centre, he told The Telegraph he had paid people-smugglers to take him across. “I will not give up trying to get to England,” said Mr Ali, who worked as a baker in Iraq. “My family are in the UK.”
As night fell, men lit fires with logs and branches foraged from the woods, and two local women appeared with huge pots heaped with meatballs and rice.
A helicopter hovered overhead — and the local mayor, Damien Carême, arrived with a police escort.
“We have a zero-tolerance policy for illegal camps,” said Mr Carême, a Green. “We can’t let them stay here but we want to avoid using force.”
In the morning, he went into the camp with Michel Lalande, the Prefect, the highest state representative in the Hauts de France region in the north of the country.
Accompanied by interpreters, they spent hours negotiating with the Kurds to persuade them to go a local sports centre where they would be temporarily sheltered.
Migrants at Grand-Synthe national park
Migrants at Grand-Synthe national park CREDIT: DAVID ROSE
After a cold night, the exhausted and hungry migrants finally agreed. Some boarded buses while others straggled back through the shopping centre car park, forming a bedraggled and forlorn procession.
Some pushed children in supermarket trolleys and one man carried a pink plastic baby bath.
“Most of us don’t know where to go now,” said Yad Abdallah, 31, an accountant. “I don’t think it’s such a bad idea to settle in France, but my wife and son are in Doncaster.”
Mr Lalande said he was optimistic that the migrants would eventually agree to seek asylum in France. “We are confident they will agree to go to processing centres tonight or tomorrow,” he said.
But last night dozens of migrants were still wandering around Grande-Synthe. “We’ve become used to seeing them and they’re not bad people,” said Françoise, 45, a local housewife. “But it can’t be allowed to go on indefinitely. It’s been years and still no one’s solved the problem.”
Mr Lalande downplayed the number of migrants who have gone missing since the camp in the suburb was engulfed in flames.
Charities believe up to 500 people from the camp, which had become home to an estimated 1,500 migrants, may be sleeping rough in the area. Mr Lalande said almost all had been accounted for, as the camp’s population had in fact been smaller than previously estimated.
“The numbers often varied as people came and went,” he said.
Mr Carême said the camp, opened in March last year and designed in collaboration with the medical charity MSF (Doctors Without Borders) as the first in France to meet international humanitarian standards, would not be rebuilt.
“It was a success because it prevented the appearance of illegal camps but it was never intended to be permanent,” he said.
howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
Where would be the ideal place locally for a makeshift camp to be set up? Alkham Valley would be nice or River Recreation ground or maybe out at St Margaret's.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/04/28/emmanuel-macron-wants-renegotiate-calais-border-treaty/Captain Haddock- Location: Marlinspike Hall
- Registered: 8 Oct 2012
- Posts: 7,482
howard mcsweeney1 wrote:Courtesy of the Telegraph, it appears that the Afghans and Kurds don't hit it off.
To paraphrase Tom Lehrer ' The Sunni hate the Shia, the Shia hate the Sunni, and everyone hates the Jews'.
'If no one went no faster than what I do there'd be a sight less trouble in this world'
Jan Higgins- Location: Dover
- Registered: 5 Jul 2010
- Posts: 13,657
Farthingloe where the tunnels workers used to be. with its ready made roads so the poor things would not have to live in such muddy surroundings.
howard mcsweeney1 likes this
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I try to be neutral and polite but it is hard and getting even more difficult at times.
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Guest 649- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 14,118
Not the bay thank you my family own shops and house,s out there
Sue Nicholas- Location: river
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 5,981
Nor River rec we fought hard to save that
Button- Location: Dover
- Registered: 22 Jul 2016
- Posts: 2,900
Pyongyang is getting tense...
Jan Higgins likes this
(Not my real name.)
Brian Dixon- Location: Dover
- Registered: 23 Sep 2008
- Posts: 23,940
Goodwin sands
John Buckley and howard mcsweeney1 like this
Captain Haddock- Location: Marlinspike Hall
- Registered: 8 Oct 2012
- Posts: 7,482
Brian Dixon wrote:Goodwin sands
Aber sicher ist es ein offizieller Kriegsfriedhof voll von unseren tapferen Toten, sonst würden wir alle deutsch sprechen?
'If no one went no faster than what I do there'd be a sight less trouble in this world'
Guest 1033- Registered: 23 Aug 2013
- Posts: 509
“The numbers often varied as people came and went,” he said.
What an incisive mind the author of the above quote must have.
Guest 649- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 14,118
do what we do it is the highlands we go .trying to get the funds now to get going .I think we are flying and the local train this time. Mr Cooper and his good wife have been down in Dover for a few days,but gone back now.
howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
If the border controls move then the ferry companies will have to raise fares to cover the costs of extra security, £.2000 fine per stowaway will make it essential.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/05/08/exclusive-ministers-draw-plan-calais-crackdown-amid-fears-macron/Button- Location: Dover
- Registered: 22 Jul 2016
- Posts: 2,900
...not to mention the cost of new infrastructure in Dover for processing 100% of 'overt' passengers.
howard mcsweeney1 likes this
(Not my real name.)
Captain Haddock- Location: Marlinspike Hall
- Registered: 8 Oct 2012
- Posts: 7,482
Lovely boating weather! While we've had our eye off the ball getting all worked up about Mr Trump, Mediterranean crossings are 40%
UP on last year!
http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/humanitarian-rescue-boats-ferry-service-mediterranean-migrants-40-last-year-1622455
And most of them are coming from Bangladesh! That's odd. I don't remember an 'illegal war' there so how come it's all our fault?
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2017/05/19/where-are-europes-illegal-migrants-coming-from-surprise-its-bangladesh/
WE are seriously stuffed. Thanks Mrs Merkel and all the others. #RefugeesWelcome indeed!
'And they went up on the breadth of the earth, and compassed the camp of the saints about, and the beloved city' Revelations 20:9
howard mcsweeney1 likes this
'If no one went no faster than what I do there'd be a sight less trouble in this world'