Holidaymakers travelling by coach have turned
back from Dover and parents say children on school trips have been treated
"worse than cattle" amid travel chaos at the start of the Easter
getaway.
The first weekend of the holidays
saw a huge backlog in the south coast town with the Port of Dover declaring a “critical
incident”.
Extra sailings were run - including through the
night - to try to clear the backlog. A port spokesman said the delays,
which began on Friday, were "due to lengthy French border processes and
sheer volume".
The spokesman
said staff at the port had been "working round the clock" with ferry operators and border agencies to try and
get coach passengers on their way and more than 300 coaches had left the port
on Saturday.
The freight backlog was cleared and tourist
cars had been successfully processed, the spokesman said.
However on Sunday, numerous
coaches carrying groups of schoolchildren were
still stuck waiting to board.
Other holidaymakers travelling by coach
experienced gruelling delays, with one woman telling the BBC her coach turned
around and travelled back to London having been told there was "no chance
of a ferry today".
Meanwhile, Abbie Warner, said her 14-year-old
daughter was stuck in a queue for more than 24 hours.
She said the coach had left on a trip to Italy
at 1pm on Saturday and arrived in Dover at 5pm to catch a 9pm sailing - only to
be turned around and sent to wait in a service station car park.
The coach waited overnight before returning to
the port at 5am to wait in a queue for customs, she said.
Ms Warner said the group was left without food
and water, or access to a toilet on board for more than 12 hours before finally
boarding a ferry.
She added: “These are children and [they] are
being treated worse than cattle… Clearly there needs to be a thorough
investigation into how this has happened and if border control can only cope
with a certain number of buses the ferry companies should be capped on how many
they can sell.”
A spokesman for DFDS, the ferry operator Ms
Warner’s daughter was travelling with, said: “The company is very sorry that
passengers travelling by coach this weekend have experienced such long delays
at passport controls.”
Impromptu game of cricket
One group of cricket players caught up in the
chaos decided to make the best of the situation and passed the time by playing
an impromptu match while they waited.
Facing a 10-hour delay, 20-year-old Conor White
and fellow students from Southampton University Cricket Club began a game at
Folkestone services in Kent after their planned college trip to Italy was
delayed.
There were estimated waits of between six and
eight hours for coach passengers on Sunday, depending on the ferry operator,
according to Dover. But other outlets reported waits of up to 14 hours.
The port said 111 coaches were waiting to cross
the English Channel on Sunday afternoon. More than 300 coaches departed from
the port on Saturday.
On Sunday a "buffer zone" was in
place as staff tried to ease waiting times, with the BBC reporting ferry
companies had seen an unexpected 15 per cent uptick in coach bookings for the
Easter period.
Suella Braverman, the Home Secretary,
told Sophy Ridge On Sunday on Sky News that it would not be fair to view the
delays as "an adverse effect of Brexit".
She also downplayed any fears that delays at
Dover could become a regular occurrence that risks ruining school holiday
plans. She suggested that in general "things have been operating very
smoothly at the border".
Port of Dover chief executive Doug Bannister
said that although plans for the holiday period were in place months ago it had
15 per cent more coaches than anticipated and bad weather on Friday caused
further delays.
The travel chaos looks set to worsen over the
Easter holidays with Passport Office workers set to launch a five-week strike
on Monday in their increasingly bitter civil service dispute over jobs, pay,
pensions and conditions.
Meanwhile, Heathrow insisted the airport was
continuing to operate as normal and security lanes are free-flowing despite an
ongoing strike by security guards.
Contingency plans are "working well"
an airport spokesman said, adding: "There have been no last-minute
cancellations at Heathrow due to these strikes.
"Any cancellations were agreed and
actioned at the start of the week, giving passengers advance notice. Any
additional cancellations today are an airline decision and not connected to
these strikes.
"This could include a number of factors
such as aircraft issues, crew shortages, weather at outstations or air traffic
control issues like the ongoing strikes in France."