Huge delays for holidaymakers heading to Europe

France has been under a state of emergency since last November, when terror attacks in Paris left 130 people dead, and has tightened its border checks accordingly.

The port said it had no authority over French operations, but had raised the staffing issues with the Government last week.

However, Kent Police are warning that the delays will continue until at least Monday morning and could even go on until Monday evening.

On Sunday morning, the Port of Dover said passengers travelling on the A20 were still experiencing road delays of nearly four hours and up to thirty minutes on the A2, followed by two-hour delays inside the port.

People travelling, many heading off for a summer break, spent up to 15 hours in standstill in queued traffic while water supplies were dropped along the jam by police helicopter. Paul Gower wrote: “No end in sight”.

Kent Police warned that some motorists were facing delays of eight hours before arriving at the port. Police distributed water to some who had been stuck in their cars for hours.

Heightened security checks on vehicles traveling to France in the wake of last week’s Nice attacks were partly to blame for the significant delays, but it emerged that there were nearly no French border staff on duty to check vehicles.

Lengthy queues materialised after the French authorities introduced stricter border checks in the wake of the Nice attack.

At one stage only one French officer was available to check passengers on hundreds of coaches, resulting in each coach taking 40 minutes to process, Kent County Council confirmed.

DFDS along with the Port of Dover and other authorities are demanding French authorities “fully man” the border controls throughout the holiday period.

We are working with our partners around the clock to minimise the delays as far as possible.

Ferry companies said some of their vessels were leaving the United Kingdom half empty in order to keep their running schedules on time.

A spokeswoman for the Home Office said British officials were stepping in to help the French examine vehicles but could not offer assistance checking passports. They should have been prepared.

But families hoping to holiday overseas said the tailback of traffic has caused a “knock on effect”.

However, just before midnight on Saturday they had only just made it to the town of Dover and were still waiting to enter the ferry terminal.

“However, that does not take into account the effects of the extra security checks at the port, so is only an indication”.