he government plans to make emergency powers to handle post-Brexit queues of lorries heading for France permanent, and indicates that it believes post-Brexit cross-Channel disruption will be the norm.
Operation Brock, a traffic management system designed to cope with queues of up to 13,000 lorries in Kent heading for mainland Europe was meant to end by October 2021. It was extended once when the Brexit transition period ended in December 2020.
But ministers are planning to make the provisions indefinite by removing “sunset clauses” from the legislation that set out when the powers would expire, according to the Guardian newspaper.
The change was published in a consultation response on the government’s website during parliamentary recess with MPs away from Westminster. Statutory instruments are to be laid in September.
Grant Shapps, the transport secretary, has previously acknowledged that the traffic system, which allows lorries exclusive use of one side of the M20 motorway, “frustrated residents and businesses”.
The measures were enacted in October 2019 in relation to Brexit and in December 2020 after the French border closed as a result of coronavirus concerns, as well as briefly again this summer in anticipation of heavy holiday and haulage traffic to France.
Under the contingency plan, part of the eastbound M20 – the main artery to Dover and the Eurotunnel at nearby Folkestone – is closed to normal traffic and made available exclusively for lorries. Other vehicles instead use the London-bound side of the M20 in a contraflow system.
The government’s consultation response said removing the sunset clauses would provide the Kent Resilience Forum with “the ability to respond to circumstances appropriately and swiftly, minimising any disruption”.
“The Operation Brock response plans will continue to be for temporary use and only implemented if strictly necessary to minimise traffic congestion in Kent caused by disruption at the Short Straits,” it said.
It highlighted possible uses as a “contingency traffic management measure for disruption, caused by, for example, bad weather or industrial action” in future.
