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downsmail.co.uk


Opinion | News


WITH the deadline for Brexit fast approaching, concerns are growing about how the M20 and local roads are going to cope. Former Port of Dover staffer Doug Kempsteroffers his view…


When constant queues on our motorways are the new norm


EVERY driver knows the eerie stillness that descends on a blockedmotorway. Idling engines fall silent. The


whine and rumble of traffic pass- ing on the opposite carriageway seemstrangely distant. At the junctions behind, hun-


dreds of vehicles are filtering off, searching for a way round the blockage. They squeeze into back lanes and cul-de-sacs. Their drivers fume at queue jumpers, at the phasing of overwhelmed traffic lights, at gridlocked round- abouts… But on the motorway, in the eye


of the storm, there’s calm. Mo- torists confident the authorities will get everythingmoving as soon as they can. But,what if authorities couldn’t?


What if the new norm on Kent’s roads was constant queuing and congestion, the level of which would make our current traffic problems a minor inconvenience? Not just on motorways, but on urban roads and in country lanes. Transport planners arewrestling


with these very scenarios right now – after all,while politicians on both sides of the Brexit argument ped- dle slogans and rhetoric, somebody has to lay the groundwork for the distinct possibility of delays caused by newborder controls. Each year, around a third of the


UK’s total trade in goods is loaded onto trucks and funnelled into the county – that’s about 4.2m lorry


journeys. The haulage companies come to Kent for one simple rea- son… geography. With just 21 miles of water separating us from France, no one in Britain is closer to our largest trading partner, main- land Europe. Even hauliers in the Republic of





Ireland say it’s quicker to reach the Continent through Kent than sail from their home ports (10 hours compared to 20 hours direct to Cherbourg). Each lorry load is crucial to the


economy. From car parts to tools, tech to food, clothing to fuel – the procession of trucks plying the county’s roads are an artery through which our quality of life flows daily. But cross-Channel disruption in


France during 2015 gave us all a taste ofwhat happenswhen lorries come into Kent, but can’t get out the other side. Transport


Secretary Chris


Grayling assures us that, to counter potential Brexit congestion, theUK will not create a hard border “in any circumstances”. But it’s Eu- rope’s approach that will have the greatest impact on us – after all, trucks queuing on theM20 are try- ing to get into France, not Britain. Re-routing millions of lorries to other UK ports isn’t the answer ei-


It only takes a collision in restricted lanes to bring the motorway and


surrounding roads to a standstill…


ther. There isn’t spare capacity elsewhere to handle Kent’s dis- placed traffic. And where are the new ships





that are expected to ply these pro- posed routes?Who has been train- ing the additional crews to staff them? Where is the new road in- frastructure needed to support this seismic shift of trucks to elsewhere in the country? Remember, Britain has until the


end ofMarch to get its act together if there is no dealwith Europe. In this context, it’s little surprise


that, in the short to medium term, transport planners are working with what they’ve already got – Kent’smotorways. Highways England has fallen


back on the tried and tested M20. Now Operation Brock – a con- traflow system that would, theo- retically, keep county traffic moving around parked motorway freight during times of need – is to complement Operation Stack. The difficulty the agency’s plan-


ners are grappling with, however, is howto implement it. Traffic offi- cerswould need to deploymiles of cones or metal barriers before Brock could be activated. This would take between two days and threeweeks. The Port ofDover and Eurotunnel, however, get just four


hours warning before disruption across the Channel hits these shores. That time lagmeans Brockwon’t


work on an ad-hoc basis. So the only practical alternative is to have the barriers in place constantly “just in case”. But, as the current works on the M20 have already demonstrated, it only takes one col- lision or a fewbreakdowns in these restricted lanes to bring themotor- way and surrounding road net- work to a standstill. There’s also that great British


bugbear of queue jumping to con- sider. Moves to hold trucks on the M20 need to include countywide measures to stop rogue drivers using other routes to reach Dover or the tunnel. The “robust signage” Highways England proposes will not, of itself, deter offenders. And neither the port nor Euro-


tunnel can divert resources from loading legitimate truckers onto ferries and trains to push queue jumpers back onto the congested Kent road network. (Dover alone anticipates this could equate to 2,500 lorries a day). So, while Brexit is not in doubt,


there’s still everything to play for in the way we deal with it. Some- thing to ponder, perhaps, the next time you’re sitting in the eerie still- ness of amotorway queue.  Doug Kempster is deputy editor of Downs Mail and re- cently corporate communications manager at the Port of Dover.


Maidstone December 2018 19


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