French police blame ‘unexpected technical incident’ in Channel Tunnel for Dover delays

There were major delays at the Port of Dover today (Picture: Steve Finn/PA)

Drivers in Dover faced major delays today, with some facing seven to eight hour waits trying to reach France through the Channel Tunnel.

A critical incident was called at the Port of Dover, with bosses claiming they had been ‘let down’ by French border control, who operate on the English side.

But police in France have said an ‘unexpected technical incident’ was the main reason behind the delays.

According to them, French border cops were unable to deploy at full capacity in Dover until more than an hour later than planned because of the fault.

Prefet for the Haut-de-France region Georges-Francois Leclerc said it was not correct to say that the French failed to mobilise enough officers for the predicted summer holidays rush.

‘The increase in traffic for this weekend was fully anticipated and a suitable deployment was prepared,’ he said in a statement this afternoon.

Traffic could be seen piling up (Picture: PA)

It added worries for people looking to get abroad (Picture: PA)

#PODover There are currently queues of up to 4/5 hrs to clear the approach roads & border checks in Dover.
Check in is free flowing. Our next departures are:
18:50 ETD 19:05 & 20:50 & 22:10
Rest assured, if you miss your sailing you will be on the next available one

— P&O Ferries Updates (@POferriesupdate) July 22, 2022

‘Based on a close analysis of predicted traffic, the plan was to have all the police booths manned (at Dover) by 8:30am.

‘However an unforeseeable technical incident in the tunnel meant that police had to push back their full deployment by an hour. It was not until 9:45am that the booths were fully operational.’

But EuroTunnel responded by saying the incident had absolutely nothing to do with a malfunction on its end.

Its director of public affairs John Keefe told the BBC: ‘The incident at the port started overnight well before a minor technical incident in the Channel Tunnel.

‘There is absolutely no correlation between the two. It had absolutely nothing to do with problems at the Port of Dover.’

Traffic went back for miles (Picture: STEVE FINN PHOTOGRAPHY)

Thousands are setting off for their summer holidays (Picture: PA)

Authorities on both sides of the Channel are blaming each other (Picture: PA)

P&O issued a warning to customers telling them to arrive five hours at the port to get through security checks.

But in an up-to-date tweet, the ferry company announced check-in is now ‘free-flowing’.

Conservative leadership candidate Liz Truss hit out at France and told them to take action to ‘build up capacity at the border to limit any further disruption for British tourists’.

The Foreign Secretary lamented the ‘awful situation [that] should have been entirely avoidable and is unacceptable’.

She said the UK would be working with France to ‘ensure this appalling situation is avoided in future’.

But there are other issues which may explain the backlog of drivers in Kent today.

Brexit means that Brits travelling to France must have their passports stamped on entry, which means the process getting in to the country is slower.

A serious collision on the M20 that takes passengers to both Folkestone for the Eurotunnel and Dover to the port was closed for a portion of Friday afternoon because of a serious collision.

This complied with other issues like summer holiday traffic explain the major delays for drivers.

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