French border police have accused the Port of Dover of failing to adequately prepare for last weekend’s holiday rush, which resulted in lengthy delays for many travelers.
Some school busloads waited for 14 hours to cross the border and board ferries to France.
According to a spokesperson for the French border control, every booth was manned “constantly.”
According to the source, the issues arose on “the British side.”
“The French Border Police had taken the necessary measures to cope with this flow based on the forecast for the weekend,” a spokesperson for the French Police Nationale communication team said.
“Due to the structural organization of the control queues at the port of Dover, on the British side,” they added, “this was not enough to absorb the number of buses announced for one day.”
The number of buses that the police were told would pass through Dover on the weekend of April 1st and 2nd was “mathematically impossible to absorb by the control posts,” according to the spokesperson, and they had warned the Port of Dover management “several times during the week about the foreseeable difficulties.”
“The Port of Dover management therefore knew in advance that the flow would be a problem,” they added.
According to the person, French border police had “mobilized all of its staff” to deal with the rush.
“All of the booths were continuously armed, allowing all light vehicle, heavy goods vehicle, and bus routes to be open all weekend.”
“The French personnel took great care to ensure that the controls were carried out in a practical and efficient manner.” “There were no additional booths to be armed, so an additional deployment of personnel would not have improved the system,” the spokesperson explained.