Wheel Nut:
Dover Harbour Board operate 24 hours a day as does the Tunnel. How many Kentish people benefit from that for their wages? Not just the ferry staff and dockers. There are still many agencies based in Kent. Maintenance contracts for ships and trains. International Rail Freight at Dollands Moor. Warehouses and Factories, pack houses and Bluewater. The planners of the day allowed DHB to close the parking area and due to security there has never been enough parking at the UK side of the tunnel. Another major problem is illegal immigrants in Belgium and France. Years ago, you could park in Calais for your rest and ship over in the morning, now you ship over and find the lorry park is full, drivers hours are up and we have to park somewhere. Kent has the benefit of low unemployment due to road transport and lorry drivers.
You have made an extremely good point there Harry!
I very rarely use the Calais crossings except on the way back from the UK for a collection in Dunkirk, to run back to Normandie. You can see all the lay-byes Calais bound shut, notices in the services that state " Parking Poids lourd interdits" and that’s on all autoroutes Calais bound. Gone are those days where you would be driving to the ports, run out of hours and just park it up and rest till the morning. Now it’s a case of hot-tailing it to the ferry, boarding then searching for somewhere to park on arrival. I think this is the real cause of Kent’s problems and they haven’t reacted to it.
Wheel Nut:
Dover Harbour Board operate 24 hours a day as does the Tunnel. How many Kentish people benefit from that for their wages? Not just the ferry staff and dockers. There are still many agencies based in Kent. Maintenance contracts for ships and trains. International Rail Freight at Dollands Moor. Warehouses and Factories, pack houses and Bluewater. The planners of the day allowed DHB to close the parking area and due to security there has never been enough parking at the UK side of the tunnel. Another major problem is illegal immigrants in Belgium and France. Years ago, you could park in Calais for your rest and ship over in the morning, now you ship over and find the lorry park is full, drivers hours are up and we have to park somewhere. Kent has the benefit of low unemployment due to road transport and lorry drivers.
You have made an extremely good point there Harry!
I very rarely use the Calais crossings except on the way back from the UK for a collection in Dunkirk, to run back to Normandie. You can see all the lay-byes Calais bound shut, notices in the services that state " Parking Poids lourd interdits" and that’s on all autoroutes Calais bound. Gone are those days where you would be driving to the ports, run out of hours and just park it up and rest till the morning. Now it’s a case of hot-tailing it to the ferry, boarding then searching for somewhere to park on arrival. I think this is the real cause of Kent’s problems and they haven’t reacted to it.
Belgian and dutch haulage compagnies are told by their associations for security reasons not to park past Gent and more lately not past Brussels or comming from Holland or Germany, past Antwerp.
Recently police officers were attacked by immigrants at Groot Bijgaarden (Brussels), which is now closed for overnight parking, vrt.be/vrtnws/nl/2018/01/19 … groot-bij/
and they have inercepted immigrants in Brecht, Rotselaar and Houthalen (wich are an 3.5 hours drive away from Calais).
Calais - Dover stays the main route for freight because of the sheer number of crossings per day.
Wheel Nut:
Dover Harbour Board operate 24 hours a day as does the Tunnel. How many Kentish people benefit from that for their wages? Not just the ferry staff and dockers. There are still many agencies based in Kent. Maintenance contracts for ships and trains. International Rail Freight at Dollands Moor. Warehouses and Factories, pack houses and Bluewater. The planners of the day allowed DHB to close the parking area and due to security there has never been enough parking at the UK side of the tunnel. Another major problem is illegal immigrants in Belgium and France. Years ago, you could park in Calais for your rest and ship over in the morning, now you ship over and find the lorry park is full, drivers hours are up and we have to park somewhere. Kent has the benefit of low unemployment due to road transport and lorry drivers.
You have made an extremely good point there Harry!
I very rarely use the Calais crossings except on the way back from the UK for a collection in Dunkirk, to run back to Normandie. You can see all the lay-byes Calais bound shut, notices in the services that state " Parking Poids lourd interdits" and that’s on all autoroutes Calais bound. Gone are those days where you would be driving to the ports, run out of hours and just park it up and rest till the morning. Now it’s a case of hot-tailing it to the ferry, boarding then searching for somewhere to park on arrival. I think this is the real cause of Kent’s problems and they haven’t reacted to it.
Belgian and dutch haulage compagnies are told by their associations for security reasons not to park past Gent and more lately not past Brussels or comming from Holland or Germany, past Antwerp.
Recently police officers were attacked by immigrants at Groot Bijgaarden (Brussels), which is now closed for overnight parking, vrt.be/vrtnws/nl/2018/01/19 … groot-bij/
and they have inercepted immigrants in Brecht, Rotselaar and Houthalen (wich are an 3.5 hours drive away from Calais).
Calais - Dover stays the main route for freight because of the sheer number of crossings per day.
Exactly and what I said was that Kent get a lot of financial benefits from their geographical position. Kent have also benefited from infrastructure but neglected to provide parking areas.
As mentioned several times, level headed lorry drivers do not choose to those little villages or even into That London.
Immingham Killingholme and Hull would love to have 3 ferry sailings a day but time and distance prevents that.
Quick google shows at least 15 supermarkets in Kent,let’s say they have 5 deliveries from hgvs per day which equates to 75 horrible juggernauts killing kittens & orphans everyday in Kent,so the solution as stuff still needs to be delivered would be transit sized vans I assume…it would take roughly 25 vans to carry what 1 hgv carries so that would mean
1875 transit vans rolling into Kent everyday instead of the horrible horrible kitten killing hgvs,let them try that for a week they’ll be begging hgvs to return
xichrisxi:
Quick google shows at least 15 supermarkets in Kent,let’s say they have 5 deliveries from hgvs per day which equates to 75 horrible juggernauts killing kittens & orphans everyday in Kent,so the solution as stuff still needs to be delivered would be transit sized vans I assume…it would take roughly 25 vans to carry what 1 hgv carries so that would mean
1875 transit vans rolling into Kent everyday instead of the horrible horrible kitten killing hgvs,let them try that for a week they’ll be begging hgvs to return
Love your figures above cos that’s a real eyeopener , that would be, over a 6 day period, I won’t include Sunday as it’s only Tesco that’s open, a staggering 11,250 vans Imagine the chaos !!
Now I don’t want what I’m about say to sound as if I’m in agreement with this councillor, cos I sure as hell am not, but is he complaining about ALL trucks or just those that venture off of the motorways and trunk roads to find “other routes”, through Kent villages and towns, that he thinks have no right to be there as they are actually transiting the county? If this is the case, then maybe weight limit signs with a picture of a lorry and a red line through it, with the words “in transit” underneath could be put on the exits signs of these motorways and trunk roads and not just on the one at the exit but again at the end of the slip road. Also at roundabouts just before the villages giving the driver a chance to double back. I know that the system is already in place in loads of areas, where you have the “except for access” sign, but I mean actually on exit slip roads and I don’t mean tiny signs the size of an A3 sheet of paper but big sign that should be put by the town name or road number. We have this system in France and it works and should you be stopped within the restrictions, unless you can prove by showing a delivery address within that area, it’s a very heavy fine. Obviously on roads like the A21 or A22 down to the south coast unless there is a bye-pass it wouldn’t be possible to stop the lorries, but if there is a diversionary route, the lorries MUST use it if transiting. To me that is the key word, unless they are delivering to these towns/villages, that have a major road running near by, then they have no right to be there.
Calais - Dover stays the main route for freight because of the sheer number of crossings per day.
No, because it is the shortest (and cheapest) crossing distance, and on the most direct route from central and southern Europe.
For dutch vegetable transport towards London, it is not the shortest or cheapest route, but CA-DO gives the flexibility of not being bound to a certain shipping time.
You just get on a later boat (or train) and still be around the same time in London.
Calais - Dover stays the main route for freight because of the sheer number of crossings per day.
No, because it is the shortest (and cheapest) crossing distance, and on the most direct route from central and southern Europe.
For dutch vegetable transport towards London, it is not the shortest or cheapest route, but CA-DO gives the flexibility of not being bound to a certain shipping time.
You just get on a later boat (or train) and still be around the same time in London.
Last time I looked, the Netherlands were not in central or southern Europe
Unless you are a planner…
Obviously the parts of the country owned and resided in by those who decided on and have benefited by these changes (financially, they are driven by money and power and can see no further than their wallets, mammon again), haven’t seen these changes to anything like the same degree.
Just take a drive out into the Cotwolds, apart from the increasingly ugly cars they drive little has changed since the 50’s, it will come as no shock that this is David Cameron’s home patch.
Not sure why you can say the Cotswolds have actually benefited… We had nothing to start with.
There was NEVER any heavy industry here, so there were NEVER large population numbers. To think everything has been kept the same because royalty and politicians live here is not something I believe.
Quite what happens to the existing agricultural workforce when the farming subsidies cease is going to be interesting, as a lot of the farms are unprofitable already.
Great then you’ll have no problem with welcoming some ‘new town’ urban development there like we’ve seen historically lumbered onto the South East and a massive road building programme to link the place properly with Bristol and London and to provide some decent alternative motorway links between the Midlands and Southampton and Poole and Plymouth.Then you can take your fair share of the country’s infrastructure needs and population numbers.As opposed to piling ever more of it into the South East while other parts of the country remain an under developed wilderness.
I think people are pver reacting to a problem casued by a small amount of drivers.
If some people wont delver to Kent, you may find this hard to believe but no one will actually care, someone else will its business and business is all about money.
Reading some of the comments you cant help but wonder what an outsider reading this would think of all the childish comments?
Trickydick: I think people are over reacting to a problem casued by a small amount of drivers.
If some people wont delver to Kent, you may find this hard to believe but no one will actually care, someone else will its business and business is all about money.
Reading some of the comments you cant help but wonder what an outsider reading this would think of all the childish comments?
Tell that to the counselor then !! He’s the one doing all the overreacting isn’t he ■■
Trickydick: I think people are over reacting to a problem casued by a small amount of drivers.
If some people wont delver to Kent, you may find this hard to believe but no one will actually care, someone else will its business and business is all about money.
Reading some of the comments you cant help but wonder what an outsider reading this would think of all the childish comments?
Tell that to the counselor then !! He’s the one doing all the overreacting isn’t he ■■
He most likely is, after all hes from Kent
What I was trying to get across is people saying they will avoid/wont deliver to kent comes across as school yard talk and not grown up repsonsible people driving heavy bits of kit on the public highway.
Trickydick: I think people are over reacting to a problem casued by a small amount of drivers.
If some people wont delver to Kent, you may find this hard to believe but no one will actually care, someone else will its business and business is all about money.
Reading some of the comments you cant help but wonder what an outsider reading this would think of all the childish comments?
Tell that to the counselor then !! He’s the one doing all the overreacting isn’t he ■■
He most likely is, after all hes from Kent
What I was trying to get across is people saying they will avoid/wont deliver to kent comes across as school yard talk and not grown up repsonsible people driving heavy bits of kit on the public highway.
Quite agree, Kent will always need trucks to deliver/collect, to shops, from suppliers, to and from cold stores etc. As I said in my previous comment, it is those transiting the county that need to stay on the through routes avoiding passing through these towns and villages and not using the other smaller routes as a short cut.
I’ll give you an example, Sellinge on the A20, going to the industrial estate and even the Airport cafe at Lympne. Coming from London most drivers will come off the M20 at J10 and use the A20 to get to Lympne, passing through the village. The only truck that should be on that route is the one going to deliver to the Co-Op store in Sellinge and no others. There should be a mandatory notice on the exit sign at J10 and at the roundabout further on prohibiting trucks from using the A20 south if transiting. The reason trucks use this route? Because it’s shorter by a couple of miles than coming off at J11 and running up to the Ind. Estate. You have to enforce the rule, FORCING all those that are heading to Lympne that they MUST use the M20 and exit at J11!
Harry Monk:
I regret to inform you that Councillor Holden has not had the manners to reply to my perfectly polite and respectful email.
Getting such a reply is like “being asked by a pollster what you think when you’re living in a Majority-voting Brexiteer area”.
Heard on Radio 4 last night that "Successive public opinion polls are showing that over 75% of voters now support a soft Brexit, and staying in the customs Union and single market".
What a !!
I See these people with the microphones and/or clipboards, scuttling away from those like me who attempt to walk up to them to get them to ask my opinion.
I reckon the Remainers will be saying next: “You can stop the new building projects, like the new Thames tunnel at Shorne, if you join our pro-soft-brexit campaign”
“But Sir… These people who put “Stop the Bypass” type posters up - are massively in the minority!”
FFS who cares a ■■■■ if a few brudder farmhouses on the marshes get compulsory purchased, and the receivers of that compensation find themselves unable to get out of paying the taxes that such pay-offs leads to!
!!