With just days to go before Christmas, lorry drivers held up in and around Dover by European travel bans fear they may not be able to make it back home in time for celebrations with their families, and the long delays are a sign of things to come in January after the Brexit transition period ends.
On one of the darkest and dankest days of the year, Daniel, from Romania, had been waiting four hours in Kent with a van full of printing cylinders from Gillingham due to be delivered to Nancy in France on Monday.
“I don’t know when I’ll be able to get a ferry,” he told the Guardian. “I do this journey every week and it has been getting worse. Two or three months ago it was OK. Now it is too much waiting. Too many times it is waiting for the ferry or the train.”
He added: “I think after 1 January not many people will come, because it’s so difficult. I’ve lost one day here. I don’t think I’ll come back in January.
“The customs paper will make it even more difficult. At least 6,000 or 7,000 lorries come here. Imagine 6,000 or 7,000 lorries checked by customs. It takes 15 minutes for one lorry for custom papers. That’s too difficult.”
France closed its border to UK traffic soon after Boris Johnson announced a new strain of coronavirus, forcing ferries and the Channel tunnel to stop services. While freight can still enter the UK, drivers are unlikely to risk getting trapped until the border reopens.
Daniel said: “My company sent me a message saying France could allow freight to travel from the UK within hours. So maybe I can go but I don’t think so. I need to get to France and then home, but Christmas might be a problem. The officer at the harbour says maybe two days.”
Stanislaw Olbrich, a 55-year-old driver stranded about 24 miles north of Dover at Ashford International Truckstop, after much of the world shut its borders to Britain, just wanted to get home for Christmas with his wife and three children in southern Poland.
Olbrich suspected politics may be at play. “I take freight to Britain and I can’t go back home because of (the) stupid virus. But I don’t know if it is the virus – I think it’s politics,” Olbrich said.
“It’s very difficult for me because I am away. My chances of going home for Christmas are going down. It’s stupid and I am nervous and unhappy about that.”
Surrounded by about 200 other stranded trucks in Ashford, Olbrich said: “They need me to come for Christmas - it is a very special holiday in Poland. For Polish people it is very hard to be away at Christmas.”
Valter, a driver from Slovenia who regularly delivers clothes from Milan to London, said he had never known delays like this. His truck had been parked up in Dover for six hours after a delivery to London. Asked when he expected to move, he shrugged. “I don’t want to wait but what can you do?”
Christina, from Romania, said she feared spending another night sleeping in a van with eight others. The vehicle was parked on the Dover sea front next to a Premier Inn that she could not afford.
“I want to go home for Christmas but I don’t know if it is possible,” she said. She travelled to England in the summer to pick strawberries on a farm in Ledbury, Herefordshire, but had spent the last few months packing prawns in a factory in Fort William in the Highlands.
She said she had papers to return after Brexit, but doubted she would.
A German-registered truck driven by Tomas from Poland was one of about 30 lorries parked in the misnamed Airport Cafe carpark in Sellindge, near Ashford. He said: “It’s crazy. I’ve been waiting here all day. I want to go home tonight in the tunnel.
“I just talked to my wife and told her I can’t drive because the French closed the border and she is not happy. It’s a big a problem. I’m hoping to get back home but I’m waiting for information.”
The freight industry estimated that 80% of the truck drivers operating in the UK were employed by EU-owned businesses.
