Officials at port say Brexit is a factor behind queues – live

Port of Dover officials have hit back at claims by the home secretary that long queues at the port are not a result of Brexit.

A spokesperson for the port said the processing time for each passenger had increased since Britain left the European Union, and that this was a factor in the disruption.

Suella Braverman had earlier said that Brexit was not to blame for several days of travel chaos at Dover – insisting that traffic gridlock would not be a regular occurrence on the border with France.

Our political correspondent Adam Forrest reports:

Coach passengers who have been stuck in queues of up to eight hours in Dover have finally made it in to the port.

Traffic delays began on Friday and passengers hoping to get away for their Easter break on Sunday night will face a few more hours waiting to be processed at border controls and then get on a ferry.

P&O Ferries told coach drivers to head straight to the port to join the buffer zone queues, where advance passenger information (API) will be taken, but said “currently there is a 6+ hour wait to reach the border check points”.

Read the report for the latest statement from Port of Dover about the weekend coach traffic.

The blog on disruption at the Port of Dover is closed for the evening, but will be back on Monday.

As many as 20,000 coach passengers hoping to sail from the UK’s leading port to Calais and Dunkirk this weekend have endured extremely long waits at Dover – in some cases up to 18 hours – before departing by ferry to France.

The delays coincided with the start of the Easter holidays for many schools, which brought a surge of coaches to the Kent port.

The Port of Dover declared a critical incident and says it has been “working round the clock with the ferry operators and border agencies to get coach passengers on their way, with extra sailings being put on overnight to help clear the backlog”.

Our travel correspondent Simon Calder explains why there is disruption at Dover.

On Saturday, passenger Rosie Pearson described the travel scenes in Dover as “carnage” as she was stuck for 16 hours with her husband and two teenagers.

Ms Pearson, 50, is an environmental campaigner from Essex and was travelling to Val d’Isere in the French Alps on an overnight bus.

Charity director Maggie Gordon-Walker, of Brighton, said her son’s school trip to Italy’s Folgarida area had to be cancelled due to health concerns for the tired coach drivers caused by the delays.

Ms Gordon-Walker, who feels the delays have been “exacerbated hugely because of Brexit red tape”, told the PA news agency: “They arrived at Dover around 8pm yesterday (Saturday) and were shunted off to a services near Folkestone.

“They returned to Dover around 2am and stayed in the coach in the queue until 9.20am this morning, when it was decided the trip had to be cancelled on the grounds of health and safety because the coach drivers would have needed a nine-hour rest break upon arrival in France, so the school party would have been travelling for over 48 hours without sleep.”

Coach passengers who have been stuck in queues of up to eight hours in Dover have finally made it in to the port.

Traffic delays began on Friday and passengers hoping to get away for their Easter break on Sunday night will face a few more hours waiting to be processed at border controls and then get on a ferry.

In a statement issued on Sunday evening, the Port of Dover said: “All of this weekend’s coach traffic is now contained in the port ready for processing through immigration controls. Coaches have been processed throughout the day along with tourist cars and freight vehicles.

“The Port of Dover continues to work with the ferry operators and border agencies to get the remaining coach passengers on their way as quickly as possible.

“We continue to offer our sincere apologies for the prolonged delays.”

Dover officials have hit back at claims by the home secretary that queues at the port are not caused by Brexit.

A spokesperson for the port said that processing times for each passenger had increased since Britain left the EU and it was a factor behind the disruption.

It comes as Suella Braverman said Brexit is not to blame for several days of travel chaos at the Port of Dover – insisting that gridlock would not be a regular occurrence at the border crossing with France.

Adam Forrest has the latest.