FAMILIES heading for France over the Easter school break have been warned to leave plenty of time to get to the ferry port as new passport checks at Channel ports could mean long delays.
The new checks start on April 8 and every passenger’s passport will be checked in the new crackdown, the first for 17 years.
UK home secretary Theresa May has already warned of possible “public order problems” on the roads once the checks start.
She told the Commons home affairs select committee yesterday she was considering whether coach passengers should be exempted but as part of “contingency measures in place if there are public order problems”.
Dover, which sees up to 50 sailings a day and which handles 60% of UK continental ferry traffic, may face acute problems – with the UK Chamber of Shipping warning that as tourist and freight vehicles were checked extended queues could reach 650 vehicles or up to 8km.
Eurotunnel, too, which depends on speedy turnaround to meet service schedules on both sides of the Channel, could be affected as it deals with 12,000 cars on peak days.
We fear any delays in
exit checks could mean
tourist traffic and
freight could get mixed
P&O Ferries head of communications Brian Rees said the company had “advised the government that the school Easter holidays was not the best time to start such an operation. We would have preferred to avoid the holidays altogether.”
He added: “It takes us about 35 or 40 seconds to clear a car if there are four people in the car this could be doubled to 70 seconds and even longer if there is a problem with the passport or we have to ask people to open tinted windows and the like.
“We try to keep tourist traffic and freight traffic well separated and we fear that any delays in the exit checks could mean they get mixed together.”
Delays could lead to queues with family cars being stuck on the approaches to Channel ports while mixed in with HGVs.
Immigration Minister James Brokenshire admitted on Radio 4’s Today programme that the checks might lead to delays at busy times and he added “it's advisable for anyone to set out earlier to ensure that they're at their port of departure on time".
However, Eurotunnel spokesman John Keefe said it was not a matter of people turning up early for their crossing as that could lead to crowding problems.
He said: “What we would want is for people to fill in the advance passenger information document for all passengers when they book. Then they should turn up on time, within two hours of their service, and to have passports open and ready when they arrive at the embarkation booth.”
MyFerryLink said the minister’s suggestion was “rather simplistic and a little misleading" as "arriving too early at a fully operational check-in will only increase the queuing not the throughput”.
It added: “We are expecting to operate a normal schedule over the holiday period. If the passport checks cause serious problems, we will look at the possibility of rescheduling certain sailings in order to accommodate customers who have been delayed by heavy queuing. We operated this system in Calais at the end of last summer when the UK Border Force passport checks were causing serious tailbacks.
Brittany Ferries has said it is “confident that our UK ports will not see any delays as a result of exit checks because Brittany Ferries has already been swiping passports at check-in for the past three years. Thus, the transaction time for each car we check-in will remain largely unchanged.”
Eurotunnel estimates that it has cost £2.5million to get ready for the checks and £1m a year in staff costs.
Trials running at the
moment to see how
checks can be carried out
The checks are not terrorism related but are part of checks on illegal immigrants. The Home Office said it had been working with carriers for 18 months on how to implement the checks and that trials were running at the moment to see how the work could best be carried out.
It added that the exit checks “will allow us to confirm a person’s departure from the UK, delivering on the coalition Government’s commitment to introduce exit checks”.
However, in a hard-hitting response, MyLinkFerries said: "The time period allocated by Mr Brokenshire and his department was insufficient to carry out the necessary studies on traffic management and infrastructure, given the port is already at 100% capacity at peak periods. Much of the data we have to hand has been modelled, due to insufficient real time research. The implementation date has been dictated by the forthcoming election and the government’s desire to have something in place, rather than by conclusive data, testing and appropriate planning."
The Chamber of Shipping added: “This scheme will enable the Government to claim that it has delivered on a manifesto commitment, but it offers no benefits to passengers. Outbound passport controls at ferry ports were removed by the Home Office in 1994 on the grounds that they were a waste of time.”
When the checks were scrapped, the Home Office said that they took up 7% of the Immigration Service's operational duties and were replaced by an “intelligence-led approach, using CCTV and greater liaison between border agencies, port operators and transport carriers”.
