Dover delays: Queues of cars at port for start of Easter holidays
- Published
The Port of Dover said border control were experiencing 'severe delays' on Friday
People arriving at Dover have had to wait hours in traffic before being able to cross over for France.
Problems started at the port on Friday at the start of the Easter holidays, despite work to clear the queues there were still waits of up to four hours on Sunday morning.
Passengers include children going on Easter holidays and school coach trips.
Some coach passengers have had to wait for up to 14 hours.
Port of Dover authorities released a statement apologising and saying the extra coach bookings taken by ferry operators had taken for Easter had partly caused the delay.
Boarding coachloads of separate passengers is much slower than boarding cars.
The Port of Dover, P&O Ferries and DFDS Seaways have all blamed lengthy checks at French border control and bad weather for the incident.
In a statement to the BBC on Saturday, the port authorities in Northern France said that there were "no difficulties that we know of ", but that lots of coaches had arrived at the border in Dover at around the same time.
All border checkpoints are working and have been since Friday night, it added.
Extra ferries were put on over Saturday night to try and clear the backlog and the port authorities said they hoped it would be back to normal by midday on Sunday.
Ferry companies said bad weather was partly to blame for the delays
The Port of Dover is Europe's busiest ferry port and the nearest English port to France.
Many coaches stuck in Dover have been carrying schoolchildren from different parts of the UK on school trips abroad.
One driver taking a group from Cardiff to Austria said they had been in the vehicle for 14 hours.
These children on a coach trip managed to keep smiling through the wait
The port said on Saturday that passengers caught up in the queues have been given food and drink.
A coach of school children traveling to France had been given bags of crisps, some chocolate and water to see them through on Saturday, other groups stopped for hours at service stations ahead of the queues to stock up.
Sara Miles, who is going with her husband and two young daughters to visit her parents, told the BBC: "It's all a bit chaotic. People are turning off their cars and getting out.
"The girls are very excited about the holiday and it'd be too difficult to turn back now."
