TWO illegal immigrants decided to smuggle themselves out of Britain through Dover to dodge the credit crunch, a court has been told.
http://www.thisiskent.co.uk/dover/Illegal-immigrants-flee-UK-Dover-credit-crunch/article-314111-detail/article.html
Told you this would happen! I put the following post on Dover Forum back in 2002:
Nigel's usual intelligent and informed appraisal of the prospects for averting gridlock doesn't sound too promising, does it? Freight operators will not tolerate these endless delays and the business will go elsewhere. In the meantime, we need to make the best of a bad job. As Dover descends remorselessly ever deeper into the Third World, we need to capitalise on every opening. The A20/M20 can be viewed as the longest permanent traffic jam in Western Europe or it can be viewed as the longest linear business opportunity. Ask not what you can do for your motorway, ask what your motorway can do for you. For a start, we need to rename the town Gridlock. It's a wrench but there it is. Change the signs on the A20 to read "Welcome to Gridlock, twinned with Tombstone". Erect a large sign on the Western Heights roundabout advising "Gridlock City Limits, check your weapons here". Lure the suckers down through all the roundabouts, head 'em off at the pass at York Street and down into Concrete Canyon. Then drygulch these varmints as they crawl towards the distant welcoming traffic lights at Woolcomber. Hit 'em with everything we've got. Squeegee merchants, hot dogs, kebabs, Fanta, gypsies with rabbit's paws labelled "better luck next time", small boys offering the services of their big sisters, runners with bootleg cartons of Regal, little plastic models of Gridlock Castle (made in Hong Kong), souvenir traffic cones, show 'em what we're made of. On exiting the small trader enterprise zone they can then enjoy a night's B&B at the Beaufort House, as shown on TV, drop any spare coins in the collecting tin at the Eastern Docks (needy Old Dovorians - please give generously), and then down to an ageing P&O ferry or the new French job and away. In ten year's time the streets will be deserted, tumbleweed rolling down the faded yellow lines, the pub sign outside the Britannia creaking on its hinges in the slipstream from the very last juggernaut, thundering down Concrete Canyon past desperate groups of locals trying to get away to make a new life in Afghanistan
, and arthritic Cortinas daubed "Khyber Pass or bust". Down to the last P&O ferry (Poland and Oriental, it was the manning costs), and out to the open sea, the last sailing from the Port of Gridlock and the end of an important chapter in our history. Problem solved.