Complete waste of fucking time and money. How they expect any lorries to leave in an orderly fashion from Manston is beyond me. Most of the lorries clogging Dover decided to ignore any instruction to go to Manston or park on the M20. It's been carnage here all week.
And we pick up the bill for this shit. Well done Macron!
What exactly has Macron done wrong? The UK announce a new strain and measures that mean people can't move between different areas in the UK, yet you expect the French to be less stringent than different regions within the UK? Yes it caused chaos, but you can't drive from Tier 4 into Tier 3, so why would anyone expect another country to accept people travelling from Tier 4?
As we saw all too predictably, the Brexit supporting press who have spent years complaining we can't control our borders now all slam France for trying to control it's borders. The hypocrisy is staggering.
Complete waste of fucking time and money. How they expect any lorries to leave in an orderly fashion from Manston is beyond me. Most of the lorries clogging Dover decided to ignore any instruction to go to Manston or park on the M20. It's been carnage here all week.
And we pick up the bill for this shit. Well done Macron!
Feel for you mate. Saw it last night. God help anyone who needs to get out of there in an emergency.
Complete waste of fucking time and money. How they expect any lorries to leave in an orderly fashion from Manston is beyond me. Most of the lorries clogging Dover decided to ignore any instruction to go to Manston or park on the M20. It's been carnage here all week.
And we pick up the bill for this shit. Well done Macron Johnson!
I believe I read some comments yesterday saying it was obvious testing would be required and we should have started earlier, but the news said the French refused to accept lateral flow testing. When they relented the testing was set up. (I'm not criticising anyone, just saying what I believe happened).
I believe I read some comments yesterday saying it was obvious testing would be required and we should have started earlier, but the news said the French refused to accept lateral flow testing. When they relented the testing was set up. (I'm not criticising anyone, just saying what I believe happened).
I said that they should have started testing earlier. France might not have accepted the lateral flow tests, but in case they did, it would have allowed a few more of those poor lorry drivers get home for Christmas. A lot of them are going to be stuck in Kent and won't see their families this Christmas.
The traffic chaos isn't only affecting East Kent, the M20 closure is causing problems in the Maidstone area as well. Traffic is having to use the A20 instead.
Kent prepared which is the official site of the so called' Kent resilience' state in it's key objective state"The plans have been developed to ensure that the M20 can be kept open, and that disruption to local residents, businesses are kept to a minimum" it also talks about the welfare of drivers and passengers, and communities including Covid 19, and bad weather?. Last night the A20 from Ashford\Sevington was in chaos as HGV blocked the roads ( as they had no where to go, I could not even get to Hythe on the A20, and the police diverted us via Canterbury, later on even that road was blocked , and the M20 going up to London was Also used closed to be used to park HGV's as Manston was full.Dover and the surrounding roads ground to a stand still, as the HGV refused to move and get the Covid test at Manston, as they would loose there place, having been there up to 4 days. The Covid testing staton was closed at 10 pm, as it was the end of there "shift' according to sky. In short it was an example of how not to manage a situation, that the various agencies failed to respond to, with the exception of the police who did there best, in overwhelming circumstances. All week the highways agencies have blocked the exit to Hythe junction 11, as the HGV's have been parking on the exit roads. Of course that leads to people having to come along the A20, going past the only lorry park, which of course was totally overwhelmed. The local MP Damien Collins proudly proclaimed that the plans in place could deal with 'any scenario', and that local residents and business would not be affected 11 days ago on BBC Kent. Of course the panic caused by mutation of the virus, caused a melt down, and panic, but only today have the army been called into Manston. ( which is according to the news, is now resolving the issue, with HGV's leaving) I have no idea about travelling anywhere, (even if I was allowed to) even if I wanted to, such as going to a testing station, or god forbid hospital ( Ashford) seems hopeless today, maybe tommorow? Obviously, we have a 'unreasonable worse case scenario' you do wonder if it snows 2 inches over Christmas into the mix ?, it does make you wonder what the planners of this fiasco originally thought that this 'too little too late' approach thought would happen as we approached the Jan 1st deadline...
Operation Brock was meant to keep Kent moving by having a contraflow on the London bound carriageway of the M20 from J9 to J8. There are so many lorries now in Kent that they have had to use the London bound carriageway, as well as the coastbound carriageway to store all the lorries. There is chaos on the M20 and A20 around Maidstone and Ashford as a result. If it were not for the lockdown, the traffic would be even worse.
It's quite clear Grant Shapps has no idea of the amount of traffic in Kent and the traffic management supposed to deal with the sort of problems we are now experiencing, are woefully inadequate.
On a lighter note and an example of the good in a lot of people, my local community Facebook page has many posts from people trying to get food to stranded lorry drivers.
Couldn't organise a piss up in a brewery. How long have they been planning to use Manston? They have not even installed the most basic of facilities for the lorry drivers. Now we are relying on French firefighters to come over and carry out the testing and volunteers and charities to feed the people. WTF have the government and KCC been spending our money on?
Couldn't organise a piss up in a brewery. How long have they been planning to use Manston? They have not even installed the most basic of facilities for the lorry drivers. Now we are relying on French firefighters to come over and carry out the testing and volunteers and charities to feed the people. WTF have the government and KCC been spending our money on?
1. There are toilet and shower facilities at Manston 2. The army were there 3 days ago and started testing 2 days ago. 100% fact from mate who is there. 3. We are not relying on French firefighters. They are in addition, focusing on French speaking drivers. Seems a reasonable token gesture by the French, and Co operation both ways has been trained for for at least 30 years.
Operation Brock wasn't designed to deal with the French closing their borders. Nothing was getting through, so of course there's going to be gridlock.
Laughably, the people who are now applauding the French for wanting to take control of their borders are calling Brexiteers hypocrites, yet these are the people who advocated a borderless Europe in the same breath. They now applaud the rights of France to enact border controsl having poured scorn on the Brexiteers desire to do the same.
Operation Brock is supposed to be able to cope with any eventuality.
Bad weather & French strike action can stop channel crossings for lengthy periods. In 2015 we had weeks of disruption when people illegally tried to get to Kent via the Channel Tunnel.
Reported in the media that testing didn't continue throughout the night, when it should be carried out continuously.
We are days away from these traffic management systems in all likelihood being needed every day, due to the transition period ending. It should have coped better than it has.
Complete waste of fucking time and money. How they expect any lorries to leave in an orderly fashion from Manston is beyond me. Most of the lorries clogging Dover decided to ignore any instruction to go to Manston or park on the M20. It's been carnage here all week.
And we pick up the bill for this shit. Well done Macron!
What exactly has Macron done wrong? The UK announce a new strain and measures that mean people can't move between different areas in the UK, yet you expect the French to be less stringent than different regions within the UK? Yes it caused chaos, but you can't drive from Tier 4 into Tier 3, so why would anyone expect another country to accept people travelling from Tier 4?
As we saw all too predictably, the Brexit supporting press who have spent years complaining we can't control our borders now all slam France for trying to control it's borders. The hypocrisy is staggering.
Cases of new strain of COVID all over Europe, the UK are the only ones to bring it out in the open, actually along with South Africa.
Macron can control his borders, but migrants landed off the coast of Dover this morning ??
Amazing that a Brexit deal has been done today and Macron can have his fish and chips for a few years. I'm sure the border closure had a secondary motive with regard to Brexit. A good time to press home their advantage.
Operation Brock was meant to keep Kent moving by having a contraflow on the London bound carriageway of the M20 from J9 to J8. There are so many lorries now in Kent that they have had to use the London bound carriageway, as well as the coastbound carriageway to store all the lorries. There is chaos on the M20 and A20 around Maidstone and Ashford as a result. If it were not for the lockdown, the traffic would be even worse.
It's quite clear Grant Shapps has no idea of the amount of traffic in Kent and the traffic management supposed to deal with the sort of problems we are now experiencing, are woefully inadequate.
On a lighter note and an example of the good in a lot of people, my local community Facebook page has many posts from people trying to get food to stranded lorry drivers.
Complete waste of fucking time and money. How they expect any lorries to leave in an orderly fashion from Manston is beyond me. Most of the lorries clogging Dover decided to ignore any instruction to go to Manston or park on the M20. It's been carnage here all week.
And we pick up the bill for this shit. Well done Macron!
What exactly has Macron done wrong? The UK announce a new strain and measures that mean people can't move between different areas in the UK, yet you expect the French to be less stringent than different regions within the UK? Yes it caused chaos, but you can't drive from Tier 4 into Tier 3, so why would anyone expect another country to accept people travelling from Tier 4?
As we saw all too predictably, the Brexit supporting press who have spent years complaining we can't control our borders now all slam France for trying to control it's borders. The hypocrisy is staggering.
I am sure you read my post carefully before replying but I think you missed my point about this and tried to turn into something it wasn't meant to be. I never mentioned anything about expectng the French being to be less stringent, or indeed did I mention Covid. You bought that into the posting. For the record I agree wholeheartedly that people shouldn't be moving around like they are at present until this is over.
I merely pointed out that Operations Brock, Tap256 and Tap20 and getting lorries through Kent to Dover is not the finished article it's made out to be. It needs a lot more work and cohesion from the authorities.
Anyway, a deal has now been done since my original posting so hopefully we won't have to suffer this carnage in Kent any more. Fingers crossed.
Jesus. I dread to think what anyone driving on the road below was thinking as they watched that lorry burst through the barrier above them. Thank goodness it didn’t go all the way through.
Heard this on the regular traffic reports on Radio 2 yesterday. How the hell did the lorry end up like that. Another case of driver not paying attention or looking at his phone ...?
Heard this on the regular traffic reports on Radio 2 yesterday. How the hell did the lorry end up like that. Another case of driver not paying attention or looking at his phone ...?
I saw a suggestion that the brakes locked on the trailer.
Not Strictly Kent but a fire in the Blackwall tunnel northbound is causing chaos right now. I'm watching from my window as everyone comes off and is trying to get back on in the other direction. I imagine the knock on for the A2/M2/Dartford crossing will be interesting.
The fire in the Blackwall Tunnel caused severe chaos in all the local Greenwich roads on Friday till very late in the evening. The Blackwall being shut always caused bad traffic issues but this was on a different level. Stories of people being stuck in jams for hours, leaving their cars and walking home etc.
I am surprised there isn't a thread about Greenwich roads and their new layouts with the LTN's closing off access (with more coming) and expanded cycle lanes. Greenwich Council leader coming under a lot of pressure on twitter. Emergency services vehicles are not able to get to places. Cars have to sit behind buses now when they stop as they cannot pass. The lower road is constantly jammed. The top of shooters hill is no better. And this is all during lockdown when traffic was supposed to be lighter.
It's going to be one great big sodding mess when a game is on. I would strongly urge people to get the train!
Comments
As we saw all too predictably, the Brexit supporting press who have spent years complaining we can't control our borders now all slam France for trying to control it's borders. The hypocrisy is staggering.
When they relented the testing was set up.
(I'm not criticising anyone, just saying what I believe happened).
In short it was an example of how not to manage a situation, that the various agencies failed to respond to, with the exception of the police who did there best, in overwhelming circumstances.
All week the highways agencies have blocked the exit to Hythe junction 11, as the HGV's have been parking on the exit roads. Of course that leads to people having to come along the A20, going past the only lorry park, which of course was totally overwhelmed. The local MP Damien Collins proudly proclaimed that the plans in place could deal with 'any scenario', and that local residents and business would not be affected 11 days ago on BBC Kent.
Of course the panic caused by mutation of the virus, caused a melt down, and panic, but only today have the army been called into Manston. ( which is according to the news, is now resolving the issue, with HGV's leaving)
I have no idea about travelling anywhere, (even if I was allowed to) even if I wanted to, such as going to a testing station, or god forbid hospital ( Ashford) seems hopeless today, maybe tommorow?
Obviously, we have a 'unreasonable worse case scenario' you do wonder if it snows 2 inches over Christmas into the mix ?, it does make you wonder what the planners of this fiasco originally thought that this 'too little too late' approach thought would happen as we approached the Jan 1st deadline...
It's quite clear Grant Shapps has no idea of the amount of traffic in Kent and the traffic management supposed to deal with the sort of problems we are now experiencing, are woefully inadequate.
On a lighter note and an example of the good in a lot of people, my local community Facebook page has many posts from people trying to get food to stranded lorry drivers.
2. The army were there 3 days ago and started testing 2 days ago. 100% fact from mate who is there.
3. We are not relying on French firefighters. They are in addition, focusing on French speaking drivers. Seems a reasonable token gesture by the French, and Co operation both ways has been trained for for at least 30 years.
Laughably, the people who are now applauding the French for wanting to take control of their borders are calling Brexiteers hypocrites, yet these are the people who advocated a borderless Europe in the same breath. They now applaud the rights of France to enact border controsl having poured scorn on the Brexiteers desire to do the same.
Bad weather & French strike action can stop channel crossings for lengthy periods. In 2015 we had weeks of disruption when people illegally tried to get to Kent via the Channel Tunnel.
Reported in the media that testing didn't continue throughout the night, when it should be carried out continuously.
We are days away from these traffic management systems in all likelihood being needed every day, due to the transition period ending. It should have coped better than it has.
Macron can control his borders, but migrants landed off the coast of Dover this morning ??
Amazing that a Brexit deal has been done today and Macron can have his fish and chips for a few years. I'm sure the border closure had a secondary motive with regard to Brexit. A good time to press home their advantage.
Ours arrives in a transit and there's usually room for other customers orders too.
I am surprised there isn't a thread about Greenwich roads and their new layouts with the LTN's closing off access (with more coming) and expanded cycle lanes. Greenwich Council leader coming under a lot of pressure on twitter. Emergency services vehicles are not able to get to places. Cars have to sit behind buses now when they stop as they cannot pass. The lower road is constantly jammed. The top of shooters hill is no better. And this is all during lockdown when traffic was supposed to be lighter.
It's going to be one great big sodding mess when a game is on. I would strongly urge people to get the train!