Come to Yorkshire and save on the stress. The roads are mostly clear up here apart from the M62.
I'm moving up in three weeks! I'll miss The Valley terribly though. Just working out which northern away games I can get to as well as planning a few trips back down to SE7.
Not only the M20 - the M2 is also solid traffic from junctions 3 to 6.
The problem isn't just the Tunnel as two DFDS ferries are out of action because of industrial action. So much traffic goes through Kent to Calais, that it only takes a minor interruption to cause delays. The crossing from Dover to Calais is running at, or beyond its capacity.
Trying to get around Kent at the mo is just a miserable experience.
If this traffic delays me on my annual pilgrimage to the Kent Beer Festival this weekend I will get one of the few remaining ferries across to France and park my Peugeot 308 sideways across a French motorway.
Trying to get around Kent at the mo is just a miserable experience.
If this traffic delays me on my annual pilgrimage to the Kent Beer Festival this weekend I will get one of the few remaining ferries across to France and park my Peugeot 308 sideways across a French motorway.
I was supposed to be away with work Friday, didn't get a ticket, now I'm not and it's too sold out.
More road nightmares around Maidstone today. Turns out we were really lucky last weekend, with just a 20 minute detour on the A20.
Can't believe the French Police are doing nothing about the strikers blocking the roads and rail track off with their tyre burning. We should send in the Met to sort them out.
Tasting it last week on my way to Belgium and hearing it was worse this week - I would say that something has to be done urgently. This is affecting people's livliehoods.
Can't believe the French Police are doing nothing about the strikers blocking the roads and rail track off with their tyre burning. We should send in the Met to sort them out.
Apparently the french police and strikers are part of the same union. That would explain a lot.
At last the problems in Kent are making the national headlines as it is hitting holiday makers wishing to go to Europe via Dover & Folkestone. I feel very sorry for anyone trying to head off on holiday, but the people of Kent have had to put up with Operation Stack for 21 of the last 36 days.
A colleague travels from Folkestone to Maidstone every day and he has been taking 2 hours to travel that journey every evening that Stack has been in place. He takes a detour via Tenterden, Appledore, & New Romney adding many miles to his journey with the added fuel costs.
The plan to use the London bound carriageway as a contra flow will help a little, but with the amount of traffic travelling in Kent there will still be long delays.
The constant action of migrants in France is a threat to National Security. If a migrant can get into the Tunnel so can a terrorist. I just don't understand why the French are not taking this threat seriously. If they had the will they could bring in the military to enforce security.
Then the French would have to take responsibility for processing the migrants and I suspect that they reckon most of them are in France illegally so they'd rather leave the problem for us to sort out.
Yet again Kent is in traffic chaos. When will the French actually do something. I hope our Government will bill the French for the millions it is costing Kent Police, the Freight Industry and everyone in Kent affected by this madness. They should be making a complaint to Brussels for the French preventing free trade.
Yet again Kent is in traffic chaos. When will the French actually do something. I hope our Government will bill the French for the millions it is costing Kent Police, the Freight Industry and everyone in Kent affected by this madness. They should be making a complaint to Brussels for the French preventing free trade.
Our spineless government will pay them for causing us the inconvenience.
Saw on the news that Theresa May has promised £7 million to tighten security at Eurotunnel.
On BBC South East this evening they stated that Eurotunnel think that 2000 migrants stormed the tunnel terminal last night. The film showed migrants cutting the wire fence and apparently the French Police were putting them on buses and taking them a few miles away and releasing them. At the very least they should be charged with criminal damage.
Unless security is improved terrorists are going to see this as a golden opportunity to cause mayhem by putting a bomb in the tunnel or on a train.
Saw on the news that Theresa May has promised £7 million to tighten security at Eurotunnel.
On BBC South East this evening they stated that Eurotunnel think that 2000 migrants stormed the tunnel terminal last night. The film showed migrants cutting the wire fence and apparently the French Police were putting them on buses and taking them a few miles away and releasing them. At the very least they should be charged with criminal damage.
Unless security is improved terrorists are going to see this as a golden opportunity to cause mayhem by putting a bomb in the tunnel or on a train.
Agreed, but very unlikely to happen. The last thing the French want is any of these languishing in their gaols at the French taxpayers expense. The people who should be charged with criminal damage are those lighting fires on the Eurotunnel track. In the name of trade unionism or not, that's criminal damage in anybody's book.
Unfortunately, there's a political charade being played out here between the two governments, and while May and Cameron are waving their hands in the air, the people of Kent are suffering the most.
I don't know if it is a political charade, it looks like a combination of criminal activity, world economic imbalance and humanitarian crisis. It is simplistic to wave the wider issue away with the back of the hand, but when people regularly die by climbing into aircraft undercarriage spaces, or set out in flimsy craft in the Mediterranean, or across the sea to Australia, or die hanging onto the roof of a train, or the underneath of a lorry, or in a freezer transporter, or stifling in an airless container then to me the issue is one of desperate people. I don't see it as an issue of folk who want to get to rich countries to freeload. I know a girl and her sister who work seven days a week in a family nail business in Bromley. Both girls very likeable and chatty, and have an impressive streetwise confidence about them. They left Vietnam one as four year old, the other as a two year old, and simply set out on the south China sea, somehow ending up in Hong Kong. I asked why her parents took such a risk, and she matter of factly said it was either stay and die, or take a chance, might die, but they felt desperate. I feel a bit good that these boat people were welcomed into the UK, and given a chance. In my idealistic world view I see these sisters as 'us' not 'them' and the desperate of Calais are more or less 'us' too aren't they? I do agree that there seems to be some kind of international political shenanigans being played out, but I would like to think that when folk use the words immigrants, or illegals, or migrants, they remember there are real people they are talking about, and it could be any of us bar an accident of birth. There is a solution, or solutions to be found, but the likelihood is that solutions might be a bit costly, and quite long term, but what is the alternative, charge them, imprison them or worse?
These migrants are all in a safe country (France) but choose not to claim asylum there because they want to get to Britain. Presumably because they think that they will get houses, jobs or benefits. We don't have enough of those for our own people so they need to be told that this isn't the promised land.
If we let them into this country they are being rewarded for their actions and this will only lead to more trying to get here. We do need a Europe wide solution perhaps with a small number for each country, but then again, more will try to come to Europe if they see that leaving their own country has the result they want.
David Cameron says that he doesn't want to blame the French but they seem to be doing very little. Just heard on the lunchtime news that not one person has been prosecuted for the problems they are causing.
so Seth in ur Utopia when is enough enough ? more than 300,000 a year legally allowed to stay here(more than 90% in England). Maybe if your beloved Labour Party hadnt deliberatly opened the doors and then lied about the numbers for a decade---people would be more sympathetic to the plight of genuine refuges.
I do not think this is a French problem or a UK one its one of the biggest issues facing Europe and has to be addressed pan euro.
If these are asylum seekers as you suggest then they should be seeking refuge in the first safe haven---not travelling another couple of thousand miles to "select" their new home.
Who pays for these new comers ? at the moment its the local councils --- by law.
so Seth in ur Utopia when is enough enough ? more than 300,000 a year legally allowed to stay here(more than 90% in England). Maybe if your beloved Labour Party hadnt deliberatly opened the doors and then lied about the numbers for a decade---people would be more sympathetic to the plight of genuine refuges.
I do not think this is a French problem or a UK one its one of the biggest issues facing Europe and has to be addressed pan euro.
If these are asylum seekers as you suggest then they should be seeking refuge in the first safe haven---not travelling another couple of thousand miles to "select" their new home.
Who pays for these new comers ? at the moment its the local councils --- by law.
This, I think, is what sticks in most people's craw.
For all those migrants currently in Calais (apparently approx 5K at the moment) there are many thousands more in southern Europe who are presumably claiming asylum there. In a few years they will all have EU citizenship and then be able to freely come here.
Unless the rules regarding free movement are changed, we will then have many more entering this country. Our infrastructure cannot cope at the moment so the problems are going to be even worse in the future.
They are fleeing from countries in security breakdown largely due to the British Governments policy shared with the US to create mayhem by removing stable leaders who had control eg Saddam Gadaffi presumably for the benefit of Saudi, Israel, arms and petro industries etc. and for a further example by helping to set up isis v Assad. So we have an obligation to take these refugees in.
They are fleeing from countries in security breakdown largely due to the British Governments policy shared with the US to create mayhem by removing stable leaders who had control eg Saddam Gadaffi presumably for the benefit of Saudi, Israel, arms and petro industries etc. and for a further example by helping to set up isis v Assad. So we have an obligation to take these refugees in.
Fine. Give us your address and I'll drive some around to you. How many spare bedrooms do you have so i know how many to bring?
Comments
The problem isn't just the Tunnel as two DFDS ferries are out of action because of industrial action. So much traffic goes through Kent to Calais, that it only takes a minor interruption to cause delays. The crossing from Dover to Calais is running at, or beyond its capacity.
If this traffic delays me on my annual pilgrimage to the Kent Beer Festival this weekend I will get one of the few remaining ferries across to France and park my Peugeot 308 sideways across a French motorway.
I'm very sad.
Can't believe the French Police are doing nothing about the strikers blocking the roads and rail track off with their tyre burning. We should send in the Met to sort them out.
A colleague travels from Folkestone to Maidstone every day and he has been taking 2 hours to travel that journey every evening that Stack has been in place. He takes a detour via Tenterden, Appledore, & New Romney adding many miles to his journey with the added fuel costs.
The plan to use the London bound carriageway as a contra flow will help a little, but with the amount of traffic travelling in Kent there will still be long delays.
The constant action of migrants in France is a threat to National Security. If a migrant can get into the Tunnel so can a terrorist. I just don't understand why the French are not taking this threat seriously. If they had the will they could bring in the military to enforce security.
On BBC South East this evening they stated that Eurotunnel think that 2000 migrants stormed the tunnel terminal last night. The film showed migrants cutting the wire fence and apparently the French Police were putting them on buses and taking them a few miles away and releasing them. At the very least they should be charged with criminal damage.
Unless security is improved terrorists are going to see this as a golden opportunity to cause mayhem by putting a bomb in the tunnel or on a train.
Unfortunately, there's a political charade being played out here between the two governments, and while May and Cameron are waving their hands in the air, the people of Kent are suffering the most.
It is simplistic to wave the wider issue away with the back of the hand, but when people regularly die by climbing into aircraft undercarriage spaces, or set out in flimsy craft in the Mediterranean, or across the sea to Australia, or die hanging onto the roof of a train, or the underneath of a lorry, or in a freezer transporter, or stifling in an airless container then to me the issue is one of desperate people. I don't see it as an issue of folk who want to get to rich countries to freeload.
I know a girl and her sister who work seven days a week in a family nail business in Bromley. Both girls very likeable and chatty, and have an impressive streetwise confidence about them. They left Vietnam one as four year old, the other as a two year old, and simply set out on the south China sea, somehow ending up in Hong Kong. I asked why her parents took such a risk, and she matter of factly said it was either stay and die, or take a chance, might die, but they felt desperate.
I feel a bit good that these boat people were welcomed into the UK, and given a chance. In my idealistic world view I see these sisters as 'us' not 'them' and the desperate of Calais are more or less 'us' too aren't they?
I do agree that there seems to be some kind of international political shenanigans being played out, but I would like to think that when folk use the words immigrants, or illegals, or migrants, they remember there are real people they are talking about, and it could be any of us bar an accident of birth.
There is a solution, or solutions to be found, but the likelihood is that solutions might be a bit costly, and quite long term, but what is the alternative, charge them, imprison them or worse?
If we let them into this country they are being rewarded for their actions and this will only lead to more trying to get here. We do need a Europe wide solution perhaps with a small number for each country, but then again, more will try to come to Europe if they see that leaving their own country has the result they want.
David Cameron says that he doesn't want to blame the French but they seem to be doing very little. Just heard on the lunchtime news that not one person has been prosecuted for the problems they are causing.
Maybe if your beloved Labour Party hadnt deliberatly opened the doors and then lied about the numbers for a decade---people would be more sympathetic to the plight of genuine refuges.
I do not think this is a French problem or a UK one its one of the biggest issues facing Europe and has to be addressed pan euro.
If these are asylum seekers as you suggest then they should be seeking refuge in the first safe haven---not travelling another couple of thousand miles to "select" their new home.
Who pays for these new comers ? at the moment its the local councils --- by law.
Unless the rules regarding free movement are changed, we will then have many more entering this country. Our infrastructure cannot cope at the moment so the problems are going to be even worse in the future.