Severe ferry delays as passengers must wait ‘up to three hours’

There are severe ferry delays in the UK today as P&O have told passengers to leave enough time to reach their destinations as wait times could be ‘up to three hours today’. 

Although the Port of Dover as said that traffic is moving this morning, the 24th July 2022, Lord Ricketts has warned that passengers will have to accept delays as “the new normal” at the port ever since Brexit came into force, due to the bureaucracy created by the UK’s decision to leave the European Union, as reported by The Observer. 

However, as the former ambassador for France, Ricketts has made clear that “the shortage of French border force officials is a short-term, tactical problem. Whereas the longer term, more severe issue is the “full pressure” placed on the English-French border post Brexit. He explained that the massive delays are due to Dover port being unable to “cope with the volume” of traffic travelling through. 

Ricketts has lain the blame at the UK’s government’s door who “failed to invest in expanding the facilities”. Because of their failure to do so, the delays will be an ongoing problem at the Port of Dover. 

Many travellers have taken to twitter to ask whether the queues are “still awful”. Others have tweeted to defend France from claims that the delays are a French problem, and “Don’t blame France, #BlameBrexit” is currently trending on the social media platform. 

Another twitter user Sally Feeney commented that “it took a friend 4.5 hours to get from a hotel in Dover to the ferry which should have been 9 minutes!” 

However the official Port of Dover Travel twitter account has tweeted about their plans to expand interim border control infrastructure” and take steps “to improve traffic systems and passenger experience” in order to address the problems. 

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