A Government and Kent Resilience Forum statement said food, toilets and water are available for hauliers along the M20 and at Manston, with more food trucks sent to Manston.
The statement adds: “There are more than adequate health and welfare provisions available, with nearly 150 toilets and urinals at Manston and portable toilets every 1 km on the M20 between junctions 10a-11. Seventy additional toilets will arrive at Manston tomorrow morning.
Yet the hauliers on the ground report something completely different:
“You wouldn’t treat your dog this way and to leave drivers like that, it is a sham,” said Phil Houlton, operations director of the Staffordshire-based haulage firm DWP and Sons, whose drivers got caught up in the queueing around Dover during the first day.
He said conditions on the roadside were awful. There were few toilets available to those still stuck, and many drivers had been left with little or no access to hot food, drinks and showers, after the French authorities closed the border to accompanied freight or cargo in an attempt to stem the spread of the new coronavirus variant discovered in the UK.
Houlton said the British authorities knew disruption in the area was coming, adding: “They have nothing and it is disgraceful.”
As usual, the government gets caught with its pants down. Operation Yellowhammer turns into Operation Browntrousers and Gove's claims that the UK is well-prepared for any eventuality falls at the first hurdle - just as predicted by anyone with any insight into the logistics of cross-Channel freight trade. On Monday Johnson claimed that there were only 170 trucks delayed at Dover - which might have been strictly correct, but he made no mention of the thousands of trucks queuing at Manston and other locations in Kent, nor of the thousands of trucks parked up elsewhere in the UK who have been told not to drive to SE England.