French firemen join fight to ease backlog of 6,000 lorries at Dover today

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British testers attempting to clear a 6,000-strong backlog of lorries queuing up to cross into France have found just three Covid cases among the 2,364 drivers swabbed so far, it has today been revealed. 

More than 1,000 lorry drivers, stranded in Kent since Sunday when France slammed shut its UK border, have already crossed the Channel since Wednesday after returning a negative Covid test. Another 2,000 are expected to be able to leave by this evening, officials say.

The drivers have been stranded on the M20 in Kent, at nearby Manston Airport, or around the streets and laybys of Dover due to the travel ban, imposed after the identification of a new Covid strain in south-east England.

France has demanded drivers be swabbed for coronarvirus before crossing the Channel, sparking the UK to launch a mass-testing drive last night.

Today a group of 26 French firefighters armed with 10,000 Covid testing kits today joined the campaign to swab the thousands of stranded truckers. The firefighters have been personally administering the Covid swabs to lorry drivers.

Around 100 NHS staff and 170 Armed Forces personnel are leading the UK’s testing drive today, aiming to swab  up to 600 truckers per hour in a bid to clear the backlog. 

Unlike the French firefighters, the British testing teams are passing the swabs to the lorry drivers to self-administer – method is considered less effective by experts. A recent Oxford University study found the accuracy of rapid Covid testing kits fell from 79 per cent when used by experts to 58 per cent when carried out by people without any training.

The thousands of drivers who test negative for Covid will be allowed to cross into France. The three drivers who so far have tested positive for coronavirus will be quarantined in Covid-safe hotels.

It comes as today Transport Secretary Grant Shapps announced ferries and Eurostar services between Dover and Calais will run over Christmas in a bid to end the backlog. He said last night he hoped it could be cleared ‘by New Year’. Others have also warned the backlog could take days to sort out.

But as the backlog began to clear today, the head of the Road Haulage Association accused France of treating drivers like ‘pawns in a larger game’ amid the Brexit negotiations – an allegation the French have repeatedly denied.  

Meanwhile, a group of Sikh volunteers have tried to the raise the spirits of the the thousands of lorry drivers stranded in Kent, with a delivery of 1,000 Domino’s pizzas amid the ongoing border chaos.

It comes after tensions boiled over yesterday in Kent as frustrated lorry drivers, who had been stuck at the border for days, waited to get a positive test.

One Polish lorry driver has told how he had to make the heartbreaking call to his pregnant wife and daughters telling them he was unlikely to make it home for Christmas, and would instead be spending it in his cab stuck on the A20 in Dover.

Wojtek Golawski is one of thousands of truckers stranded in Kent and facing disappointment over the festive season, with just 200 tests an hour being carried out on Wednesday.

There was then more confusion as it emerged that testing on Jubilee Way, the main route into the Port of Dover, was shut down last night before 10pm.  

The Department for Transport insists the immediate priority has been to clear the main backlog of vehicles along that road, that testing would resume there today, and that a 24/7 operation was also in force at Manston Airport, where thousands are parked up, and on the M20 motorway.

A spokesman added that the absence of testers in Dover overnight would not prevent access to the port, while the number of drivers tested each hour on Thursday is expected to ramp up to 500 or 600, with officials looking to set up ten mobile testing units for truckers stuck in queues.   

Police have finally started letting drivers into the Port of Dover to be tested for coronavirus and, if negative, they can begin their journeys home.

Around 6,000 lorries, 4,000 at Manston Airfield and 2,000 on the M20, are said to be waiting to cross the Channel. Lorries are also parked in and around Dover, in streets and laybys. Highways England has warned all drivers – including hauliers – to avoid travelling to Kent until further notice due to continued cross-channel disruption.

Grant Shapps last night said he was unsure at how long it would take to clear the backlog, but said he hoped it would be sorted ‘by New Year’. Today he tweeted that ferry and Eurostar services between Dover and Calais would continue over Christmas to help ease the backlog.

He said: ‘As testing in Kent continues (latest figures & outcomes soon) I’ve spoken to my French counterpart & we’ve agreed the UK/French border at Eurotunnel, Dover & Calais WILL remain open throughout Xmas in order to help hauliers & citizens return home as soon as possible.

‘As well as ensuring ferries will now sail on Christmas & Boxing Day, we’ve also got great cooperation by French firemen working with NHS Test & Trace and our brilliant military in a big effort to clear the backlog created by the French border closure.’ 

Dover MP Natalie Elphicke also said testing was ‘well underway’, but warned it could ‘take days’ to clear the backlog.

In a tweet, the Conservative MP said: ‘Lorries are now leaving from Dover. Will continue sailings on Christmas and Boxing Day to help with the backlog.

‘Huge thanks to all ferry, military & emergency crews who are making this happen. Testing well underway, but will take days to clear.’

Tweeting about the support effort today, French ambassador to the UK, Catherine Colonna, said: ‘A team of 26 firefighter arrived early this morning at Dover with 10,000 tests COVID-19 and help the teams on the port to speed up the passage of truckers to the mainland. Well done! Good co-operation.’ 

Meanwhile, lorry driver Wojtek, from Lukow in Poland, said he had travelled to Britain on Sunday with pallets full of clothes, which he delivered to a depot in Nottingham. Like thousands of other delivery drivers, the 34-year-old has been stuck in Kent since the weekend. 

Wojtek is parked a mile and a half from the front of the queue and so will almost certainly not make it back home in time to see his two girls aged three and five open their presents.

He said: ‘It’s a horrible situation and it shouldn’t have got to this, I think it’s France trying to flex their muscles before Brexit.

‘But it means that I’m not going to make it home to my daughters and to my wife, who is seven months pregnant.

‘I had to make a very tough phone call to her earlier this evening to say that the problems in England meant I would have to miss Christmas this year.

‘She and the girls were very upset and so was I. It’s going to be depressing celebrating it on my own in the same lorry cab I’ve spent the last two nights sleeping in.

‘But this is what’s happening and I have to accept it. Even if I make the ferry to France tomorrow, it’s still a huge drive.

‘Miracles do happen, especially at this time of year, but I think I’ll be in England for a few more days at least.’

One driver at the front of the queue Catana Florian, who had transported 20 dogs and six cats rescued from the streets of Bucharest to new homes in Britain, was hoping to make it back to Romania to see his wife and seven-year-old daughter.

He had made drop offs in Kent, Peterborough, Norwich and Colchester but had got stuck in Dover when the French closed the border.

The 45-year-old was hoping to get on a Calais-bound ferry to make the 28-hour drive home to Craiova.

He said: ‘I’ve made people’s Christmases by delivering them a new family pet – now I’m hoping the British and French authorities can make mine.

‘Myself and a colleague have been sleeping in the back of our van since Sunday and I’m now wearing old clothes again as I have no fresh ones.

‘We’ve been waiting such a long time to go home and now at last it looks like we are going to making the ferry at last as long as we test negative for Covid.

‘It’s cold and wet and I just want to see my wife and little girl again and be there with them for the big day.

‘As long as there’s no more hold-ups we should make it, that would be the best gift of all.’

Filipe Mayo, a truck driver from Portugal who has been waiting to cross into Calais for four days, told BBC Radio Four’s Today Programme: ‘At the moment I’m stuck inside my truck.

‘There are two lanes, one in the left and one in the right to the tunnel and shuttle.

‘The right side where I am right now goes directly to Dover.

‘They stop us right now, nothing Is happening. We are just waiting for the instructions of the police who sometimes knock the door of the truck and say look forward and wait. 

‘And that’s it for basically the last five hours. We are waiting for the coronavirus tests so nobody really knows how much time it’s going to take to get the test, so we are just waiting in the road.’

Today, Richard Burnett, head of the Road Haulage Association, said he sympathised with the hauliers, a small number of whom clashed with police this week after being stopped from heading to the continent, adding: ‘It just feels like it’s a lever the French have pulled specifically around the Brexit negotiations.’

He told the BBC: ‘We understand that we don’t want the virus to spread but I think we have to think practically about some of the reasons why this has happened.’

Mr Burnett added he was ‘relieved’ hauliers would be able to move after French authorities demanded a negative test following the emergence of a new more transmissible coronavirus strain in the UK, but added it would ‘take some time’ to clear the backlog.

He added lorry drivers’ rates of coronavirus infection are much lower than those of workers in other sectors, at between 3% and 6%.

Yesterday, NHS staff arrived at Dover and began rolling out lateral flow tests which detect the new particularly contagious strain of Covid-19 and provides results in around 30 minutes, rather than the 24 hours required after a PCR test.

In order for anyone to travel through France, they must first produce a negative test.

A testing site had been set up at Manston Airfield, 18 miles from Dover, but the thousands of drivers who had parked up in the town after causing two mile tailbacks and traffic gridlock last night were unable to reach it.

NHS staff were instead bussed to Dover where the initial plan was to have them testing drivers while going from lorry to lorry but after police officers were attacked by frustrated drivers desperate to go home, 30 vehicles at a time were instead processed into the port to be tested. 

The truckers’ struggles come as it emerged officials performed as few as 200 tests an hour in Kent, sparking fears the gridlock that has dominated the county all week, and seen 10,000 truckers stranded, could last for days.

Fights broke out between lorry drivers and police at Dover and Manston Airport as tensions boiled over while testing staff set up swabbing centres in a bid to get them across the Channel for Christmas.

But contractors have struggled to deliver the huge scale of testing ministers had hoped to see yesterday, with the military now in place to try and speed up efforts, which sources have described as a ‘relentless operation’.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Emmanuel Macron had earlier agreed a deal to let lorry drivers into France with a negative 30-minute lateral flow coronavirus test, after two days of chaotic gridlock following the French president’s fears over the new super-infectious strain of Covid-19 sweeping across Britain and other countries. 

The Road Haulage Association said the chaos will probably last until Boxing Day with between 100 and 300 tests being carried out per hour at Manston and a total of more than 6,000 lorries to get through. Alongside Manston, tests have taken place at the Port of Dover itself. 

Andrew Opie, director of food and sustainability at the British Retail Consortium, today warned the backlog could cause issues in the supply of fresh goods to Britain. He told the Telegraph: ‘Until the backlog is cleared and supply chains return to normal, we anticipate issues with the availability of some fresh goods.’ 

A major flashpoint in Kent was at the entrance to the port, where drivers blocked the entrance in anger at not being allowed to cross the Channel without a negative coronavirus test from the UK Government. 

To get that test – which is self-administered – they had to travel 18 miles to Manston, which is already full with 3,800 lorry drivers who also clashed with police today and broke out of the site in running battles with officers. Two men were led into a police van in handcuffs by officers earlier following a scuffle. 

However, a further test site yesterday being set up at the entrance to the Port of Dover, although the junction was blocked by vans and cars with some even parked in the wrong direction. Other centres were also being put in place at at Dreamland amusement park in Margate and on the M20 heading towards Folkestone.

The first testers arrived at Dover shortly before 3.30pm yesterday, as four police cars escorted nine vehicles driven by medics into a car park. Officers were seen speaking to three women wearing blue disposable face masks and hi-vis jackets with the NHS Test and Trace logo before they walked towards the port’s passenger reception.

Dozens of truckers trying to reach their homes on the Continent tried to force their way past officers guarding the Port of Dover this morning. Hundreds left their cabs and walked along the A20 to the port entrance jeering and whistling, with some shouting in English: ‘Open the border’, ‘We just want to go home’ and ‘F*** you, Boris!’

At one point several of them surged forwards towards a line of Kent Police officers who were forced to push them back as days of simmering anger at the chaotic situation amid the pandemic bubbled to the surface. Some drivers showed police apparently negative results, but an officer said a lot of them were ‘fake test sheets’.

Tensions also boiled over at Manston Airport, where truckers whose lorries are being held staged a protest, broke down fences and blocked roads. Some 150 members of the Armed Forces and NHS staff are working to administer Covid-19 tests at the airport, which are handed to drivers in their cabs to be self-administered under supervision. 

The result will then be communicated to the driver via text or email, identifying them via their numberplate. It wasn’t until after 5pm that Kent Council leader Roger Gough said the first 20 trucks have entered the Eurotunnel to make the crossing. 

Meanwhile, a blue van, a white van and a silver Ford Mondeo were the first three vehicles to seemingly get the all clear and be allowed to drive through the port at just before 6.30pm. These were then replaced by a further 12 vehicles shortly afterwards.

Cllr Gough said tensions between police and drivers had calmed down but added the situation remained ‘quite fragile’.

He said 100 lorries have left the Manston site for Dover but had been unable to get to the port as it was being blocked by other vehicles.

‘On the M20 side of things, the first 20 HGVs have gone into Eurotunnel,’ Mr Gough told Sky News, adding that the number should begin to ‘pick up’ rapidly.

Clashes broke out again between drivers and police at Dover earlier in the day yesterday as officers moved vehicles away from outside the entrance to make room for the testing centre.

One driver laid down on the ground to stop a freight lorry which had earlier come off a ferry from Calais from leaving Dover with about 50 drivers involved in a flare-up. 

Any new lorries arriving at Manston, a disused former military airfield, were being directed to Operation Brock on the M20, where 610 vehicles were waiting. A further 632 were placed in Operation Stack on the same motorway. 

It comes as Communities Secretary Robert Jenrick last night warned it may take a ‘few days’ to clear the backlog of lorries waiting to cross the Channel.

He had initially said he hoped HGVs would begin crossing this morning.

Lorry drivers at the entrance yesterday were honking their horns and shouting in protest at being stuck. Standing in small groups, they shouted ‘we want to go home’ as they tried to shelter from heavy rain and strong winds. 

A deal was finally struck with France after a ban on UK arrivals was imposed by President Macron on Sunday, which has since seen thousands of trucks stranded in Kent, unable to cross the Channel.  

The agreement requires every driver to have been tested for coronavirus, using controversial lateral flow tests, which are able to turn around results in under an hour but have had their effectiveness questioned.

However experts warned the UK still faces an uphill battle to test 6,000 drivers a day for coronavirus – with the International Road Transport Union warning even a 30-minute test would be ‘absolutely a disaster’. 

Kent Police said a man was arrested today in Dover for obstructing a highway and remains in custody, adding that there were ‘disturbances involving individuals in both Dover and at the DfT-run lorry holding facility at Manston’. 

A spokesman also said: ‘At around 10.20am on Wednesday 23 December 2020 in Tothill Street, Minster, two men aged 24 and 35, in separate incidents, were arrested on suspicion of assaulting an emergency worker and were taken into custody.’

Detectives added that officers at both locations were ‘working with partner agencies to make sure those hoping to travel to the continent adhere to the latest Government travel requirements regarding Covid testing’.

A Port of Dover spokesman said no lorries had yet been able to pass through the port and couldn’t say how long it would take to clear the backlog. Officials also confirmed there were no testing facilities at the port itself. 

And Eurotunnel officials said the first trucks started to arrive at its Folkestone terminal at 8am today, adding that all drivers must use the M20 and join the queue on the coastbound lanes where they will be tested for Covid-19. 

Those who come back negative will be told by text message in as little as 20 minutes, and be given the green light to travel, but positive cases will get a PCR test – and if they are still positive, sent to a Covid-secure hotel to isolate. 

Mr Macron had wanted lab-processed PCR tests which can take up to 72 hours before results are received. But he caved in after a third night of talks following pressure from fellow European leaders who urged a compromise.

A Whitehall source said: ‘Many of these are European lorries – there are a lot from Poland, for example – and [EU] member states have been telling France they want to get their drivers home. In the end, Macron folded.’

Until January 6, only lorry drivers and French and EU citizens or residents who have an essential reason to travel and who show a negative test result less than 72 hours old will be allowed into France.

A testing site has been set up at Manston Airfield, but it is unclear how the thousands of drivers who parked up in the town causing five-mile tailbacks and traffic gridlock are going to reach it. Another testing point was being set up today three miles away at the Dreamland amusement park in Margate to help increase capacity.

Furthermore, a third mobile testing centre was being set up on the roundabout at the entrance to the Port of Dover, but the junction was blocked by multiple vans and cars with some even parked in the wrong direction.

This has meant not a single lorry was able to enter the port this morning despite the border technically being open. Shortly before 11.30am, a police officer shouted: ‘We need everybody to move and clear the roundabout because a mobile Covid test centre is coming here.’

One angry Polish driver stuck at Dover yesterday told MailOnline: ‘We are sick of this – I’ve been in Dover for two days and want to go home for Christmas. The French said their border was being opened but we haven’t seen any evidence of this being true. There’s thousands of people queuing to get through the port and the roads are all at a standstill. Nobody wants another night sleeping in their cab.’ 

However a police officer at the scene said: ‘I understand why they are angry but they are directing their anger towards us when it’s the French authorities making the rules. They are insisting that only people who have tested negative for Covid-19 can come through. A lot of these drivers are waving fake test sheets.’  

Meanwhile, the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishops of Rochester, Dover and Tonbridge have written a joint statement condemning the ‘unacceptable’ conditions in Kent.

The message read: ‘As Anglican leaders in Kent, we are dismayed by the situation in Dover. We recognise the need to take urgent precautions to slow the spread of the new strain of coronavirus. But to leave seasonal workers, families and some truck drivers without adequate food and sanitary facilities is unacceptable – both for those stranded and for the people of Dover.

‘For those now unable to return to their families in mainland Europe for Christmas – at the end of this year of such great suffering – the heartbreak and frustration is immense. Local councils in Kent are stretched to the limit trying to support all those who are stuck. We applaud council workers, churches, other faith groups and volunteers who are providing hot meals and other kinds of support.

‘These efforts are heroic. Kent’s local authorities are doing everything they can with the resources they have. But this is a national issue and the Government needs to intervene decisively. The necessary provisions must be given for people to endure this ordeal with their dignity intact, making sure enough Covid tests are available so drivers and workers can return home as soon as possible.

‘As we reflect on the coming of the Christ-child born in a manger, we are reminded of our responsibility to respect the God-given dignity and value of every human being. May that be the case for the people of Kent, for all those in Dover, in France and everywhere this Christmas.’

There are also concerns over shortages of fresh goods amid the backlog. British Retail Consortium director of food Andrew Opie said: ‘It is good news for consumers as the French borders have now reopened, however it is essential that lorries get moving across the border as quickly as possible. Until the backlog is cleared and supply chains return to normal, we anticipate issues with the availability of some fresh goods.’ 

German airline Lufthansa said it was sending a Boeing 777 freighter to Doncaster Sheffield Airport today with 80 tonnes of fruit and vegetables on board, with officials examining whether additional special cargo flights could be flown to the UK over the next days. 

Staff wearing fluorescent jackets bearing the NHS Test and Trace logo arrived in Dover last night ahead of the testing rollout after travelling 230 miles from Doncaster.

As many as 6,000 tests a day could be carried out in a bid to help clear the huge backlog, with 170 soldiers also set to be drafted in to help. It comes as:

A man who appeared to be leading a group of drivers protesting at the Port of Dover said yesterday afternoon: ‘We are not letting any vehicles out until we can get in. Police told us we will not be tested here at first. Now they are saying the testing centre is on the way.

‘I do not believe them. And I am not moving until we are tested and told we can go home.’

Police took control of the roundabout parking police vehicles around it with roads leading to it gridlocked. An officer was heard telling the group: ‘We need you to move so we can get the ferries running again. Then we can get you on your way. The testers are on their way.’

The group of drivers stood across the road and waved their hands in the air chanting as police formed a human barrier and pushed them away. Shortly after 2pm yesterday, the group allowed four cars and a white coach carrying P&O staff which had been waiting since around 10am to get into the Port.

Officers had to clear the cars and vans which had blocked the roundabout next to the entrance to let vehicles through. They were escorted into a holding car park inside the Port while police cars blocked any more vehicles from entering the junction.

One policeman screamed ‘stop’ at an over-eager Romanian lorry driver who attempted to skip the queue.

Meanwhile Home Secretary Priti Patel tweeted: ‘The UK-French border is reopening. Priority is to get lorries moving and mass testing is underway.

‘We urge hauliers not to travel to Kent as we work to alleviate congestion – travelling now will slow things down.

‘Tourist travellers who are not French residents should not travel.

‘My huge thanks goes to the police and Border Force who are working hard to keep everyone safe.’

But Greg Mazurek has been trapped at Dover since Monday after delivering respirators to a medical centre in Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire. He is trying to get back to his home in a Poznań in Poland for Christmas. 

He said: ‘The police were not clearing the port to set up a testing centre, it was to let lorries out of Dover. That’s why the drivers are now stopping the vehicles from leaving because they want to force the police to do something.

‘We’ve been told different things by different police officers about what’s happening. Who do we believe? People are angry because they want to go home. The irony is that I’m more likely to get this new Covid standing here among dozens of people than being alone in my cab which I had been before.’

Passengers from the UK disembarked from ferries in the port of Calais following Britain and France’s deal easing the travel ban imposed over the discovery of the new Covid-19 variant. Much of Europe swiftly banned entry by British travellers and UK freight after a more transmissible strain of the coronavirus was found in Britain.

The ‘Cotes des Flandres’ ferry – the first ship to leave Dover after the restrictions were lifted – arrived at around 3.30am local time (2.30am UK time), followed shortly afterwards by P&O’s ‘Spirit of France’.  

A handful of passenger vehicles disembarked from the two ships but traffic was not expected to pick up until late this morning according to port officials.

At Manston, two Romanian lorry drivers told how they were among the first to be tested.

The pair, named only as Marian and Bacy, were tested at the airfield 1 miles from Dover in the early hours of this morning.

They were given a lateral flow test which is supposed to detect the new strain of Covid-19 and has results in half an hour.

But they said they had not yet been alerted as to whether they tested positive or negative.

Marian said: ‘We are still waiting so we don’t know the results yet. We drove to Dover yesterday but when we found out the testing centre was going to be at Manston we headed there. We got in about 1am and waited a few hours and were tested early this morning. 

‘It was quite chaotic, there was some confusion over what forms we needed and which QR code to scan.

‘We drove back to Dover afterwards but the whole place is shutdown and nobody is going anywhere.’ 

Emil Herkt, 26, from Tczew in Poland had delivered a consignment of metal to a warehouse in London on Sunday and been stranded in Britain ever since. He said: ‘It’s a farcical situation – nobody is telling us anything. 

‘We have to apparently be tested for Covid but none of us know where to go. There is a testing site at Manston but that’s full already. Plus it’s nearly 20 miles away and the roads in and out of Dover are paralysed with traffic. 

‘So how do we get there anyway? Why haven’t the authorities set up testing here by the port where everyone is? It’s ridiculous as people are battling to get back to their homes for Christmas. 

‘The French are being very awkward and I mainly blame them but the British authorities haven’t handled this situation very well either.’ 

Ovidiu Badoiu, 47, a Romanian lorry driver who drove to Britain at the weekend to deliver a stock of fans to a factory in Telford, Shropshire, has been stuck in Dover since Monday.

He said: ‘It’s really difficult, I picked up my load in Romania and took it to the destination in the Midlands on Sunday and came down to Dover the following day where I’ve spent the last two nights sleeping in my lorry.

‘There are no toilets here, nowhere to get washed. I live in Valencia in Spain and just want to get back to my wife in time for Christmas. I think the French are being over the top about this, why are they not letting the lorries through? Hardly any of us are stopping in France, just travelling through it on to other destinations.’ 

British trucker Eric Johnson, 50, was waiting to collect his empty trailer from the Port of Dover before he can return home to Wolverhampton.

He spent two nights at the Motis truck stop off the A20 in Dover with colleagues Dave King, 48, and Dean Hammond, 31. The trio had been delivering a cargo of Caterpillar heavy machinery parts to Lokeren, Belgium. 

While Mr King and Mr Hammond managed to retrieve their empty containers yesterday evening, Mr Johnson’s was delayed. He left at 6am today after having a shower and shave to go home for Christmas.

But he moved less than half a mile in four hours on the A20 approaching the Port and has no clue when he will be able to get out. Mr Johnson said: ‘Honestly right now I just feel so depressed. I keep forgetting what day it is.

‘It’s Wednesday right? I’ve done two nights in the cabin and 50 hours in Dover but as soon as I can return home, I get stuck in this. It’s just not moving and apparently has been like this since 1am when the border reopened.

‘Luckily I’ve got enough food and water stored up but now the issue is I don’t have a toilet. I can’t just leave my truck here. I’ve seen people trying the doors of vacant vehicles. ‘

Multiple drivers loudly sounded their horns in protest at the delays which set off a chain reaction of beeps heard for miles. Tempers had flared earlier that morning as patience thinned, according to Mr Johnson.

He added: ‘I don’t reckon many people here queueing have actually been tested. Apparently some drivers were ramming down metal barriers at Manston. And some here were barging the cones at the Port entrance while pushing police.

‘I’m scratching my head as to how this has happened and how they can solve this. There’s an empty carriageway next to us so why can’t they clear the fast lane on to there to let people into the port and keep traffic moving?

‘I just want to get home now but I think I might end up calling it a night at Ashford Truck Stop.’

Roads into Dover were gridlocked today, causing traffic chaos with hundreds of vehicles parked up waiting to be allowed down to the ferry terminal. Residential streets as far as three miles away from the port were at a standstill.

Locals bared the brunt of the traffic backlog with some seen deciding to pull a U-turn and retreat home. Vehicles were held on the A2 Jubilee Way with queues building up for five miles back to the Honeywood industrial estate.

The traffic at the Whitfield Roundabout continued back on to the A256 – the main road HGV drivers who have had their Covid-19 test at Manston Airport near Ramsgate will use to return to the Port of Dover.

And Raluca Marian, general delegate to the European Union of the International Road Transport Union, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: ‘We are definitely in a better place than yesterday. At least the border is now open. 

‘But the testing is a big issue. We have now several thousand drivers already at Manston Airport and in the Kent area, but we estimate around 10,000 and there are still around 7,000 to arrive there. 

‘We are happy that finally we have a deal, that the borders are open. At the same time this testing is a big challenge for us and we don’t think it will work. The backlog can’t be cleared if you get 30 minutes per driver, even with these quick tests, that’s going to be absolutely a disaster.

‘In spring, we had the famous temperature checks at the Austrian border in the first wave of the corona. It was much less than 30 minutes, round about five to ten minutes, and we had 60km (37 miles) of queues just because of these temperature checks.

‘Now that was a constant flow, so we didn’t have the backlog. Now we have 10,000 trucks piled up. So, New Year’s Eve, after New Year’s Eve, difficult to calculate.

‘We know that the European Commission is supporting and that pressure is being put on France to accept a better solution for testing. We know France insisted to have PCR tests for everybody, which is absolutely crazy, especially truck drivers. 

‘This is really a lonely profession, they are alone in their cabins, they are not spreading. 

‘They are not only unnecessary, it’s a breach of France’s commitment earlier in the year when they committed to leave the logistics chain unaffected.

‘So we hope to have – at least if these tests are being kept, which we really hope not to be, we want no testing for truck drivers because even a 30-minute test is a disaster – but if these are kept, at least a kind of a compromise whereby you might have a testing corridor in France and not everybody stuck in the UK and tested there, could be reached and accepted by France, and we know the Commission is supporting that.’

Downing Street sources admit the programme ‘won’t be perfect’ from the off given its unprecedented nature, and warn that it could still be several days before traffic is flowing smoothly again.  

Housing Secretary Robert Jenrick told Sky News yesterday: ‘We have had productive discussions over the last 24 to 48 hours, they have reached what seems like a sensible way forwards.

‘There is going to be quite a lot of work to do over the next few days and this isn’t going to be an issue that will be resolved immediately.

‘I wish events hadn’t played out in the way they have, but they have, we now have to move on and ensure that traffic can flow as quickly as possible across the Channel.

‘I hope that this morning you’ll see people and HGVs crossing the Channel at the short straits. We’re putting in place the infrastructure, so the Armed Forces will be doing that in the first instance to help us to set that up and to get through some of the backlog that you’ve seen.

‘They will then in turn hand over to civilians who will take this forward. We have a good operation in Kent that’s been tested very significantly in the last few days, led by the Kent Resilience Forum, but it has performed well.

‘So the work that had been done over a number of years to create the facility at Manston Airport, to create Operation Stack on the motorway, has worked quite successfully, but there is now a great deal to do.

‘The procedures are there. There will be testing at Manston and at multiple other locations. If you test positive using the swift lateral flow test, you’ll then be offered a PCR test, so you can get an even more refined outcome. 

‘If you test positive again, you will then be offered Covid-secure hotel accommodation, and we’ve procured the first one of those not so far away.

‘So the HGV drivers will be able to drive there, leave their lorry there, and self-isolate for the next ten days before they’re able to cross the Channel successfully.’

The Communities Secretary said as of 7pm last night that there were just under 3,000 lorries at the disused airfield site at Manston,.

Between 700 to 800 were part of Operation Stack on the M20, he said but ‘other HGVs and smaller vehicles are parked elsewhere in Kent’.

‘Whatever the number is, whether it is 4,000 or more, it is a significant number to work through,’ he acknowledged as he advised hauliers not to travel to Kent.

The Road Haulage Association said the testing regime ‘still means we will have delays at the border’. 

The RHA estimates between 8,000 and 10,000 delayed lorries are now in Kent and its surrounding areas, in truck stops and at depots waiting for borders to reopen and to cross the Channel. 

Chief executive Richard Burnett said: ‘It’s hats off to the Secretary of State for Transport for making this happen sooner than originally anticipated. 

‘However, I fear that the thousands of truckers stranded in Kent aren’t out of the woods yet. The massive backlog of vehicles will take time to clear and hundreds of drivers run the risk or not getting home in time for Christmas’. 

The RHA added that on-site staff at Manston are providing tests to hauliers to be self-administered in their cabs under supervision. 

The result will be communicated to the driver via text message or email, identifying them via their number plate. The French Government will also carry out sample testing on incoming freight to the UK. 

It is expected the Department for Transport will set out further details of the testing programme. 

Lorries which departed a DFDS ferry were trapped and abandoned in the Port after a foreign van blocked the A2 Jubilee Way carriageway out of Dover.

Mr Burnett said that the queues of lorries on the M20 might not be cleared until Boxing Day.

He added: ‘I think there’s no clear picture as to how long it’s going to take, but my estimations after conversations with Grant Shapps is it could be Boxing Day.

‘Part of the issue is you’ve got restricted services on the Eurotunnel and the ferries are likely to finish tomorrow morning. The border police aren’t going to be working on Christmas Day in France.

‘Bearing in mind the government has been trying to prepare for transition which is in eight days’ time, you would’ve expected these plans to be well rehearsed. It’s an absolute disgrace that they’re not well prepared at all. It’s a scenario that could’ve happened in the case of no-deal.’

He added that Manston Airport, the main testing centre for drivers, was gridlocked with lorries. He said: ‘The current situation is that Manston is gridlocked and Brock and Stack are in place.

‘They’re trying to do the lateral flow tests, anything between 100 and 300 per hour. It’s more likely to be the low number than the higher number to start with.’

He added: ‘They’re going to give drivers two litres of water every day. We need to ensure that drivers have got sufficient food and water. Kent County Council were giving cereal bars yesterday morning which was not enough.

‘The Sikh community went with takeaways last night and the Salvation Army, but the government should have had this in place.’

Mr Burnett added that 20 takeaway food vans which were meant to be coming to Manston Airport this morning had still not arrived. Many drivers have been without shower facilities for more than two days.

Mr Burnett said he understood that testing was now underway on the approach road to Dover for drivers who were stuck in the queue outside the port.

Natalie Elphicke, MP for Dover, said it would take days to sort out the disruption caused by the closure of the border.

She said: ‘It is welcome news that the French have re-opened the border. But they shouldn’t have shut it in the first place. France’s actions have caused unnecessary and unacceptable levels of widespread disruption to Dover and the surrounding area.

‘It will take some days to unwind and sort out the disruption caused by the French. Local residents are rightly very angry about this and the impact on the town.

‘Setting up a testing capability of this scale from a standing start is a massive task. All the more so as lorries are scattered all over the area.

‘However, testing is now underway, and that must include mobile testing units in Dover town itself so that the traffic starts to clear from the town.’

Van driver Emil Leveu, 30, is desperate to return home for his eight-month-old son Dominic’s first Christmas. His vehicle is filled with presents for poor children back in his home country of Romania from English charities.

He welled up as he said: ‘I just want to get back home for Christmas with my first child Dominic. It will be such a special moment in his life and if I miss it because of this, I will be furious.

‘I want to spend the holidays with my family but I don’t think I’ll be able to. This makes me so sad because I look around and see other parents stuck here missing their kids too.

‘We have charities calling us saying ‘where is our parcel?’ I have to tell them it is still stuck in Dover. I came back here last night after getting a private Covid test at a testing centre. I came back negative.

‘I now have an appointment to cross the border but now that say only tourists and small cars. So now I am stuck right at the front of the queue. I will not even stop in France or get out as I have enough diesel in the car. I have been here for three days with no sleep, no shower, no nothing.’

Fellow Romanian van driver Florin Albu, 28, said after berating police officers for not letting him through: ‘I went to Manston and paid for the test. I am negative. I was told the test is free but when I got there, I had to pay £150 of my own money.

‘This is s***. The problem is the French are like this because of Brexit. It has nothing to do with Covid. This is all because England is leaving the EU. It is punishment and we are the victims.’

Bulgarian national Niko Mirchev, 23, has been stuck in Dover for four days and is in the gridlocked queues without having a coronavirus test.

The DHL delivery driver who has lived in Portsmouth since the age of 18 said: ‘If we are stuck for more days then it is not the end of the world for me as an adult but it is the little children who are stuck here that I really feel sorry for.

‘I just want to be home with my family for Christmas, as does every other person here including the policemen. In two days it will be Christmas and I could still be 3000km away from my family.

‘One Romanian man I spoke to said his mother is waiting for him in hospital and told him all she wants for Christmas is him to be there with her. It is just not fair.

‘You cannot be calm in this situation as they have just shut the border and done nothing about it. Macron and the people in charge of this are not human. They are not even animals.

‘An animal would either eat you or leave you alone. They would not f*** us like this.’

Transport Secretary Grant Shapps said the French police were only acting on the agreement to reopen the border from this morning and ‘severe delays’ were continuing.

He said: ‘Testing has begun as we look to get traffic moving again between the UK and France. However, French border police only acting on agreement from this morning and severe delays continue.

‘Please AVOID Kent while the backlog is cleared. Arriving in the area will delay your journey.’

Earlier, Mr Shapps had said: ‘We have managed to get all those tests to Kent, enough for all the vehicles which will want to return before Christmas, so that won’t be an issue. 

‘Obviously there’s a physical issue of providing the test, getting the results. A negative test allows you to leave.

‘But all of that requires operationalising and that can’t happen in an instant, so this will take two or three days for things to be cleared.’

France and the UK had previously been at loggerheads over which type of test would be required to allow trucks back on the road, with the travel ban imposed in response to fears about the spread of the more infectious coronavirus strain, which is spreading rapidly in the UK.

Mr Macron demanded the gold-standard PCR tests are used, which are more expensive, lab-based tests that can take up to 72 hours to process. 

The UK, on the other hand, had wanted to use the faster lateral flow tests which can provide results within an hour – even though these are considered less effective unless administered by a nurse and were even dubbed effectively useless. 

In a statement, the French foreign affairs ministry said that from midnight today there would be a ‘limited resumption of the movement of people from the United Kingdom to France subject to negative health tests sensitive to the variant’.

It added that a negative test result, taken less than 72 hours before the journey, is required and this can be either a PCR or lateral flow test sensitive to the new variant, though a Department for Transport statement only mentions the quick tests.  

Those who can make journeys include French and EU residents, British or third-party nationals who normally live in France or the EU, as well as some other groups. 

The deal marks a significant breakthrough after a long period of deadlock, with Brussels having called for an end to the border blockade which has seen 4,000 more lorries park up in Kent.

Mr Shapps had tweeted last night: ‘Good progress today and agreement with the French Government on borders. We will provide an update on hauliers later this evening, but hauliers must still NOT travel to Kent this evening.’

French transport minister Jean-Baptiste Djebbari added: ‘French nationals, residents and those with a legitimate reason to be here must provide a negative test.’ 

Eurotunnel said only pre-booked passengers who had already tested negative should go to its terminal.

‘From 23:00hrs on 22/12/2020, to travel to France passengers will need: – A negative result from a Covid-19 test accepted by the French Government – Taken in the last 72 hours – An email or SMS certificate issued by the testing facility. Please ensure you meet the French Government’s criteria before travelling to our terminal. 

‘There is no Covid-19 testing facility at Eurotunnel. Go to our website to book or amend tickets. PLEASE DO NOT ARRIVE WITHOUT A BOOKING AS WE ARE FULLY BOOKED.’

It comes amid reports that the British military is preparing to test up to 6,000 hauliers a day with the controversial lateral flow test.

The EU has urged European countries to drop all travel bans imposed on the UK, including on the movement of freight, as a growing number of trucks now fill the motorway and side streets near Dover. 

The bloc’s recommendation suggested rapid tests should be used to avoid disruption to cargo flows. 

The European Commission also published guidance at lunchtime yesterday recommending all non-essential travel to and from the UK should be ‘discouraged’ because of the risk posed by a new mutant strain of coronavirus which spreads quicker than its predecessor. 

But it added: ‘Flight and train bans should be discontinued given the need to ensure essential travel and avoid supply chain disruptions.’ 

On the specific issue of UK lorry drivers being allowed back onto the continent, Brussels said that where a member state requires them to take a coronavirus test before being allowed in – something France has pushed for – the process ‘should not lead to transport disruptions’.  

There has been a furious behind-the-scenes row over the issue of testing lorry drivers with France and Britain both arguing for different methods of testing.  

Operation Moonshot, Number 10’s ambitious plan to use the rapid kits to test million of people, came under fire from top scientists, with the Department of Health admitting they miss around a half of infections.

Furthermore, damning evidence now shows they may be effectively useless when self-administered, despite Downing Street’s current testing scheme relying on people taking their own swabs.   

Hundreds of soldiers are being deployed to the former Manston airfield, according to the Times, where they will use the 20-minute lateral flow tests on drivers, with those returning positive results told to isolate in hotels.

Even despite last night’s breakthrough, the scale of the backlog on both sides of the Channel means disruption at the ports is expected to last until at least Christmas Eve, with supermarkets warning of potential shortages of fruit and vegetables unless solutions are sped up. 

Rachel Reeves, Labour’s shadow Cabinet Office minister, has accused the Government of ‘dither and delay’ over its handling of the situation in Kent.

She said: ‘Once again, our communities, local businesses and restaurants are having to step up to the plate to feed lorry drivers who are stranded and exhausted.

‘All this while businesses exporting British produce are halted and put under even more strain by the chaos. We really don’t need any more dither and delay from this Government.’

Elizabeth de Jong, policy director at business group Logistics UK, has said it is ‘vital’ that testing procedures are ‘stood up fast to ensure drivers can be processed and get home for Christmas safely’.

She added: ‘The backlog of traffic across the region will take time to clear so hauliers should wait for further news before travelling to Kent.’