Last Friday I joined Jacques Gounon, the Chairman of Eurotunnel, to officially open the new access area for road freight joining the tunnel’s services at Folkestone. This completes a major investment from Eurotunnel in improving the speed and efficiency of its operations in Kent, that will help both freight, and passengers travelling in private cars […]
The large numbers of migrants in the Calais ‘jungle’ camp have been causing major disturbances to services through the Channel Tunnel in recent days. This has involved hundreds of migrants charging the perimeter fencing and gaining access to the tracks; actions that not only endanger their lives, but those of other people as well. This […]
The House of Commons returned this week after the summer recess and business has been dominated by the consequences of the migration and refugee crisis in Europe; an issue we have also been working on over the last few months. I was in the chamber on Monday to listen to the Prime Minister setting out the package of […]
Eurotunnel has confirmed that the new security measures at Coquelles in France are making a real difference to preventing migrants from breaking into the Channel Tunnel terminal. The number of migrants seeking to enter the tunnel in this way has fallen from as many as 2,000 per night, earlier in the summer, to around 150 […]
We have seen a big improvement to Kent’s roads over the last ten days since the lifting of the Operation Stack restrictions. This is mainly a result of the improved situation in Calais where there have been far fewer disturbances to the services through the Channel Tunnel, or from the Port of Calais, than in […]
Following the chaos on Kent’s roads this summer it is clear that we cannot go on as we are with the M20 closed for three to four days a week, for weeks on end, with the gridlock this causes on many of the county’s key roads. We have lobbied government Ministers and made the case […]
I met with the Secretary of State for Transport, Patrick McLoughlin, on Tuesday morning, along with other Kent MPs, to press for more action to resolve the pressure the County has faced during recent weeks from Operation Stack. I believe that there are three key areas for action. Firstly the need for lorry parking space […]