Our editor, Chris Hammond, put out a call to readers and writers across the county, asking for details of the knock-on effects of the congestion at Dover Port on the local roads of Kent.
The following is a compendium of the replies he received.
Reports of knock-on effects around the County
Michel LaRue reported that a friend from New Romney went to lay flowers on her husband’s grave in Hawkinge. It took over four hours for a journey that usually takes half an hour. The main delay was at the M20 roundabout. This was the weekend of 23/24 July, the start of the school holiday.
Louise Hummerstone wrote, “When the M20 is congested in any way, then the M2 becomes overloaded, causing a great knock-on in all surrounding roads. I regularly travel from Canterbury to Sheldwich near Faversham on school runs. Usually I take a circular cross-country route to avoid the main roads or open Google maps to check the congestion.”
What Louise reported aligns with the experience of residents along the M2 through the Medway towns. That first weekend of the school holiday, there was a major incident on M20, which caused the police to close it. As a result a lot of traffic chose to approach Dover via M2. Heavy Goods Vehicles were restricted from approaching Dover other than on M20, so left M2 and tried A2, through Chatham, Gillingham, Rainham, and Newington.
If our reader is not acquainted with these roads – A2 is Charles Dickens’ London–Dover road, as depicted in A Tale of Two Cities – they are not wide enough to carry vast numbers of freight vehicles. Consequently traffic grinds to a halt at various intersections, such as at the traffic light at the end of Rainham High Street.
Not all doom and gloom
Barbara Philips was clearly fortunate, She drove from Fordwich to St Margaret’s at Cliffe, North-east of Dover on the Monday with no sign of any traffic problems. Similarly Briony Kapoor, on Romney Marsh experienced no problems on the roads.
Meanwhile James Flannigan reported from east Kent, “There are sometimes queues coming off the M2 at Brenley Corner [just outside Faversham], where the police are often set up to redirect lorries back to the M20. There was a queue there the previous week. Other than that, haven’t seen anything.”
Fleur Challis confirmed that there definitely were problems as people sought alternative routes.
David Reid admitted that there was increased traffic to and from Canterbury between 9am and 1pm on Friday 29 July. But, he suggested, it might be that Deal is such a lovely place. Or it could be people sneaking around the normal structure (as he did from Beaune to St Raphael in France, on a day during the ‘blockade’ by lorries on French motorways).
Other areas affected
Since M20 is effectively the only approach to Eurotunnel at Cheriton, outside Folkestone, the congestion at Dover had a serious effect on passengers heading for the tunnel. This also overflowed onto local roads around the Terminus. There were considerable numbers of posts to Facebook reporting that Folkestone was completely gridlocked on 23 July.
Someone reported that A20 was affected, but that the centre of Hythe towards Dymchurch was completely clogged up, as were the roads through Lyminge, Lympne and Etchinghill.
