With reports of traffic jams already forming on the roads leading to the port of Kent, bosses have declared a critical incident and launched a crackdown on French border officials. Doug Bannister, chief executive of the port, told Sky News: “The cause is French immigration controls. This is causing a lot of disruption. French border controls are not properly staffed.” “To be frustrated the way we are with under-resourced and slow processes through the border is just extremely disappointing.” “We have shared in detail, hourly, the volume of traffic we expected, so it was absolutely known what we needed to have at the French border.” He added: “I would consider holding off heading to the port at the moment until more is known. It’s really hard to get into town this morning.” Mr Bannister also warned that the bottlenecks may not be resolved by Saturday. Asked if he could reassure travelers planning a trip in the coming days that the backlog would ease, he said: “I wish I could – we’re paying all the attention we possibly can to making sure there are enough resources to manage this very busy first weekend of summer.”
