The stretch of motorway that runs along the Kent Downs should be busy with coach tours heading to the famous castles or white cliffs, or families seeking a stopoff in a village pub en route to holidays at the English seaside or the continent.

But junctions eight to 11 on the M20 have become a near-permanent lorry park, closed to any other traffic as part of Operation Stack.

The emergency measure put in place by police to mitigate disruption at the port of Dover or the Channel tunnel used to be sporadic. Now it has become a permanent fixture of the summer in Kent, with a long stretch of one of the country’s main arteries closed for 24 of the past 40 days.

The disruption has been caused by both wildcat strikes by French workers and attempts by hundreds of migrants to reach the UK from Calais camps via ferries and the Eurotunnel. The difficulties might be overseas, but everyone in this part of Kent, from industry to small local businesses and homeowners to tourists are starting to feel serious knock-on effects.

Tourism
“The radio and TV start the bulletins by saying the stacking is starting at junction eight, the Leeds castle turnoff. So instantly, people think, ‘Well that’s it, we can’t get there’,” the heritage site’s chief executive, Sir David Steel, said.

Historian Lord Conway called the castle “the loveliest in the world” and in the cafe on the castle grounds there are still some families and groups of friends – some local, others chatting in Dutch and Spanish.

But there should be about 5,000 tourists a day coming to admire the castle and its 500-acre grounds. Operation Stack has cut that number by 30% in the last four weeks. That means a loss of £100,000 to the charity running the attraction.

“We only make around £400,000-£500,000 a year profit, which goes back into the castle,” Steel said. “So as a direct consequence of action in France, we have lost a quarter of our trading surplus for the year.

“People are either being deterred or actually even prevented coming down to Kent. Actually, it’s perception. The junction is kept clear and we are five minutes from the turnoff. But people hear they can’t get through and they don’t want to risk it.”

“This is a national problem, which is costing UK plc millions,” Steel added. “I don’t know what the solution is, but there must be a compromise. I’m sure the experts are looking at both a contraflow system and/or a different place to park the lorries, but they need to come to a decision pretty quickly.”

Forty miles away on the coast, Dover castle has also seen a drop in visitors and a significant number of pre-booked groups who have cancelled tours, citing Operation Stack as the reason, English Heritage said. In contrast, attractions further away from the disruption, like Walmer castle in Deal, have seen an increase in the number of visitors.

Neil McCollum, English Heritage’s director of historic properties in the south-east, said: “This suggests that local tourism remains strong, but Operation Stack is impacting on visitors to the area from wider afield.

“Visitors to Dover castle are vitally important in helping us to maintain and protect the national collection of historic properties in our care. If the use of the M20 for Operation Stack continues as a pattern, we would become concerned about the impact on our business and that of our neighbours in the Dover area.”

July visitor numbers at Canterbury Cathedral, one of the oldest Christian structures in England, are down 9%, a net loss of £50,000.

Tourism is worth £3.4bn to Kent and supports over 65,000 jobs, but of 95 tourism businesses and attractions contacted by Visit Kent, 82% felt Operation Stack had affected them, and 37% had directly lost revenue. A spokeswoman said many attractions attributed a considerable part of the losses to international tour group cancellations, but stressed most of the county’s tourism centres could be easily reached by train.

Kent’s economy

Matthew Balfour, cabinet member for environment and transport at Kent county council, said the county’s economy was losing £1.5m a day. “Operation Stack is a nightmare for the people of Kent who are unable to go about their daily business,” he said.

“Not only does it affect people’s lives, but businesses are suffering and anyone trying to get to Dover for their summer holidays are stuck in miles of tailbacks.”

In Hollingbourne, a village next to junction eight, residents said roads were often gridlocked, with cars trying to avoid the closures but not stopping at pubs or shops.

Pub owners in the village said many bookings from holidaymakers and locals have been cancelled at the last minute.

Kim Hitch, landlady at the Sugar Loaves pub, said: “It seems endless, and of course it affects business because no one wants to go out and risk being stuck for hours in traffic. It does vary, but we would normally be very busy at lunch in the school holidays.”

Meanwhile, Steel said: “The diversion on the A20 is causing havoc on the road, the queue going east is dreadful, all articulated lorries and cars.

“The M20 was to bypass the A20 to give people a better quality of life. Now there are stories of cars stuck on the A20, with children in the back, getting them out of the cars and taking them into the gardens of people’s houses for a pee. Pubs are seeing more people coming in than ever, but it’s not to buy anything, it’s just to go to the loo.”

Policing Operation Stack cost Kent police £700,000 for the first three weeks of July, deploying 112 staff to carry out the emergency measures. Local politicians now believe the burden on one police service is becoming too great.

“Operation Stack has failed,” said Damian Collins, the MP for Folkestone and Hythe, on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme. “We need a new solution for a crisis at this scale, it needs a national strategy because it is more than Kent police can be asked to cope with. My constituency in Kent has had a pretty rotten time this summer.”

Freight industry

The Freight Transport Association estimates delays on both sides of the Channel are costing the industry up to £750,000 a day.

“Given the value of goods lost and the subsequent cost to business, these figures show that Operation Stack is not just an issue for Kent and the south-east of England but a serious national strategic problem,” the association’s deputy chief executive, James Hookham, said.

“This is the country’s GDP and export standing still in these horrendous queues caused by the situation in Calais.”
The FTA said it had been contacted by freight businesses situated by junctions eight and nine, which say they have been crippled by the repeated closures and that the problem could be catastrophic for their business if no long-term solution is found.

What are the other solutions?
The idea of a contraflow system to allow traffic to keep going along the M20 was suggested by the FTA as a short-term solution during a summit last Friday, but Highways England said it would be a significant and unacceptable risk to road safety, though the agency may yet re-examine the proposal.

It has suggested parking the lorries not on the M20 but the Kent county showground in Detling, but residents are fiercely opposed. Manston airport has also been proposed as a place for “stacking” lorries.

Source: http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/jul/29/how-operation-stack-is-affecting-uk-tourism