The post you are reporting:
Being a Town Resident...My Saturday was totally disrupted by the Traffic Chaos.
Personally, I do not think Residents should be prisoners in their homes because the Port cannot handle its traffic and/or emergency problems.
I penned a letter to Dover Harbour Board to express my disatisfaction regarding all bodies who are supposed to deal with these problems. So far as I am concerned these problems have been going on for years and years....We have enough experts and technology at our call...yet, nothing seems to be taken very seriously.....Blaming Brexit is interesting.....Thank you.
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@doverport.co.uk)
To:you Details
After being made aware of your email regarding the issues surrounding the traffic, we have spoken to our Operations team regarding this and the information they have provided can be read as follows;
At the Port of Dover, we have constant dialogue with the external partners of Kent Resilience Forum (KRF), which includes Kent Police and Highways, who also participate in the planning meetings for getaway periods. All partners are aware of traffic predictions and expectations, however we cannot control external factors, such as the weather. With reference to the traffic flows over the weekend, a vessel was damaged due to adverse weather, which took it out of service and reduced uplift capacity. We use Dover TAP to control our freight flows and the KRF have traffic management plans in place to deal with any queues on the strategic network outside of TAP.
Kent Police and Highways are responsible for managing traffic flows on the strategic network, and it would not be our place to comment on their processes for ensuring that Dover is kept free of traffic. However, due to the location of the Port, we are placed at the end of two motorways and the town roads branch off these motorways, which allows local traffic to by-pass the traffic management areas and seep through the town to the Port. We, and our partners, put out media statements advising hauliers of the correct routes to use. However, unfortunately, hauliers often choose not to follow this instruction in order to by-pass the queuing system, to the detriment of local traffic.
We do our utmost to manage the traffic internally within the Port, and the ferry operators also work hard to ensure that they also have the correct mechanisms in place, but it is inevitable that we will experience some queuing because of the high demand that follows the lifting of Covid restrictions in the UK and because of the additional border control requirements that hauliers need to have post-Brexit. We are no longer a free-flowing Port as we were pre-Brexit, as hauliers have EU controls to adhere to.
We thank you for getting in touch and have registered your sentiments, and hope that this offers some explanation for the situation that occurred over the weekend.
Kind Regards,