Dover queues today: Roads ‘extremely busy’ as passengers urged to bring supplies

Huge queues of holidaymakers wait on ‘extremely busy roads’ near the port of Dover amid warnings of 90-minute delays.

Cars could be seen meandering from the Port of Kent to the nearby town after 11 a.m. on Good Friday, with trucks stretching further afield.

P&O Ferries and operator DFDS were reporting delays of 60 to 90 minutes at the port entrance while Irish Ferries advised people to plan up to three hours before their travel time.

Drivers have been advised to bring supplies in case they wait for hours, with queues expected to lengthen in the early afternoon.

Doug Bannister, chief executive of the Port of Dover, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “First of all the weather is clear, the ferries are sailing well, and all that stuff, this weekend was still expected to be around 30% lighter than last weekend, with today being the busiest day.

“What we have done is we have worked with our ferry operators to try and spread the demand over the three days rather than all that day.

“I know it’s difficult for the coach industry because they have routes they want to maintain, but they’ve worked with the ferry operators to be able to do that, and it’s been successful.

“We have also installed a new facility to extend our border processing for coaches, it is up and running, I just saw one go through in just under 10 minutes.

“It’s going to be a busy day, we’re probably running around an hour to an hour and a half to get through border controls at the moment, and we’ll probably hit early afternoon, and then it’ll start to slow down after that. “

Our travel correspondent Simon Calder travels to Calais from Dover. Here are his tips for people traveling this Easter weekend:

Our travel correspondent Simon Calder reports live from Kent

In an astonishing demonstration of efficiency, the entire bus of around fifty people passed through French border control in just eight minutes.

The bus stopped outside ‘The Shed’, as the coach room is informally called, and passengers were told to cross the harsh EU border which is stuck in the port of Dover.

All three counters are staffed: two for European Union and Swiss passport holders, one for the rest of the world (including the United Kingdom).

The EU queue quickly empties: the Border Police are legally only allowed to carry out a brief check that the passport is valid and that it belongs to the passenger.

Officers summon British travelers to the fast lane, where they inspect and stamp passports.

Meanwhile, the next coach is corralled so that as soon as the last passenger (which happens to be me) is cleared, the next group can step forward.

Remarkably, a line of coaches – including ours – took priority and beckoned to the port of Dover, below the white cliffs.

We passed the long line of cars and trucks queuing for border control and were told to prepare to leave the coach and enter the coach room.

“Everyone get off the bus”, please. It’s 11:54 a.m. I’ll see how long it takes to clear a car full of passengers.

At the roundabout outside Dover, where Jubilee Way begins its long downward curve towards the ferry port, a police checkpoint directs coaches bound for Europe away from the main road.

The bus stutters through town, heading west instead of east towards town.

I can’t help but wonder where I’m tied. But in the last few minutes, DFDS Ferries tweeted: “DOVER COACHES | DFDS coaches traveling from Dover must proceed to Western Docks – Cruise Terminal before arriving at the Port of Dover”.

Progress has been slow from Victoria Coach Station in South East London.

The coach stopped to pick up passengers at Elephant & Castle – at what was once the start of the E5 trans-European motorway to Istanbul, but is now just the New Kent Road/A2 to Dover.

Blackheath looked lovely, and soon the acid green double-decker Flixbus was on the M2 to the point in North Kent which is a ‘TOTSO’ – where the driver, Hussein, had to switch off to stay on the main road to Dover.

The mood on board has darkened since crossing the River Medway – which coincided with the opening of an extremely pungent snack, which appears to be infused with military-grade garlic.

I have a £61 ticket for Flixbus from London Victoria coach station to Brussels. The journey is expected to take nine hours and 10 minutes, with a stop in Lille in northern France en route.

The ferry crossing is expected to be on DFDS from Dover to Calais around 12pm – although the company warns of waits for border crossings of 60-90 minutes.

Each of the approximately 50 passengers on board must have their passport checked by French border police at Dover, which is now a hard European Union border. So the ferry may be in the early afternoon and/or switched to Dunkirk – the other DFDS route from Dover.

I don’t have a return ticket from the Continent, because frankly I have no idea when I might make landfall.

The M2 through North Kent runs freely in both directions, with a mix of cars, trucks and coaches.

Motoring organizations predict that Easter traffic will be particularly heavy on Good Friday.

The worst traffic jams are expected to occur on the west side of the M25; the M5 south of Bristol; the A303 in Wiltshire, near Stonehenge; the approaches to the Lake District; and the M20 and A20 to Dover.

The best plan: avoid the middle of the day, which is when the traffic will be the densest. If you haven’t started yet, consider postponing.

Forget the two-hour check-in for flights to Europe or the one-hour delays for the Eurostar.

Flixbus, which sold me a London-Brussels ticket for £61, suggests you arrive at least five minutes before departure – although 120 seconds is enough. Hussein, the cheerful Belgian driver, checks the tickets.

I’m supposed to be in seat 7A, but it seems to be busy, so I’m in seat 18D instead – a window seat in the second-to-last row.

Departure is delayed because a passenger bound for Liverpool discovers – in no time – that he is in the wrong coach.

Our travel correspondent Simon Calderalso known as ‘the man who pays his way’, heads to Calais this morning on one of the busiest travel weekends of the year.

Here it is at Victoria Station:

London Victoria Station is extremely quiet: half of the terminus serving Gatwick Airport and Brighton is closed due to rail engineering work.

But Victoria Coach Station, the UK’s main hub for long-distance bus travel, is extremely busy, in part because the West Coast Main Line is closed within the first 50 miles of London Euston.

At the Art Deco bus station, demand for supplies is so high that many Pret a Manger shelves are already empty.