As it happened: Drivers face hotspot of holiday hell near Eurotunnel - AA

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Seven months pregnant with two children aged five and three in tow, the long queues in the heat have been an ordeal for Emma Burge.

The family faced a "pretty horrendous" 15-hour journey travelling from Buckinghamshire, via the Eurotunnel, to the Loire valley.

They joined the queue at 6am yesterday, and got to the Folkestone terminal around 8pm.

"I haven’t seen any updates on Eurotunnel’s website, nothing about the queues to the extent they were. We were at a complete standstill," Emma says.

"Our kids did amazingly well. They were able to play on the side of the road.

"People were playing tennis on the hard shoulder."

As we've reported, members of the Coast Guard have been seen handing out bottled water today. But Emma says no one was handing out supplies yesterday, so her husband walked to the supermarket from the car.

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Holidaymakers who've been stuck in long queues in the warm weather to get to the Eurotunnel terminal got a welcome sight when they arrived in Folkestone.

They were greeted by members of the Coast Guard who've have been handing out bottles of water.

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Claire and Jim Walford, from Surrey, live 90 minutes away from the Eurotunnel terminal in Folkestone and are heading to Lake Annecy with their three children, aged seven, 11 and 13.

Claire says: "We saw this on the news yesterday but didn’t think it would be like this today".

They’ve been on the go since 8am and have been queuing for five hours.

They’re nearly at Eurotunnel now and are hoping they might get through soon.

But after the delays, they're hoping to stay at a motel in Troyes tonight and head to their destination tomorrow.

"Hopefully we’ll get there in time," says Claire.

"I think it’s important to warn people who are considering this journey as I think it will be like this again tomorrow.

"I don’t think we were prepared for this.”

French border control booths at the Port of Dover will be fully staffed for the rest of the summer, travellers are being assured.

The queues on Friday that built up at the port and sparked the subsequent road hold-ups were blamed on an shortage of workers on Friday.

Mark Simmonds, director of policy and external affairs at the British Ports Association, told the BBC: "The booths are fully staffed and we're told that the port expects those booths to be fully staffed throughout the summer."

Queues at the Port of Dover are said to be down to around an hour this afternoon, after holidaymakers had to endure two days of lengthy waits at the start of the summer getaway.

Authorities say they worked "around the clock" to get around 72,000 passengers - more than 200 miles of tourist and freight traffic combined - processed by this morning.

A spokesman for the port said the "French border is fully manned and everything is flowing normally".

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Here in Folkestone, we’ve definitely seen progress throughout the day, but from talking to holidaymakers what’s been clear is the current system of dealing with freight traffic particularly during this key holiday period, is not working as well as it could be… with journeys that usually take just a few hours, lasting days.

There have been around 600 lorries passing through Folkestone today, some have been sitting on the road for 15 hours or more.

The M20 which is this stretch of road that they’re on… has been partly shut, to accommodate them, effectively being used as a lorry park. These lorries have been competing for space with families that are desperate to getaway on holiday.

There is willingness to improve infrastructure from local authorities - but for the moment, the surge in demand we’re seeing this summer for holidays, means that these delays and queues could continue to be a familiar sight.

Motorists heading to the Port of Dover and Eurotunnel are being reminded to allow extra time for their journey in a third day of disruption.

But the situation is improving, says the Kent Resilience Forum.

Plan ahead, follow diversion signs, do necessary checks before travelling and leave plenty of extra time for their journey - and bring adequate food and drink supplies, it advised motorists.If you're on your way towards the Channel, here's the latest status update from Operation Brock:

• The coastbound M20 is currently closed for non-freight traffic between junctions 8 (Maidstone) and 12 (Folkestone)
• The M20 eastbound entry slip roads at J9, J10 and J11 are also closed to help manage traffic flows
• The London-bound carriageway of the M20 is fully open to all vehicles and is flowing freely
• Non-freight traffic is currently being diverted along the A20 to the Eurotunnel
• Tourist traffic for the Port of Dover must use the A2 and M2
• Freight drivers are reminded they must follow the signs and use the M20 to join Operation Brock at M20 junction 8

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Miles of motorway traffic jams also led to congestion on local roads in Kent - and residents have reported journeys taking hours longer than they should.

Caroline Miller, from Lyminge, lives 10 minutes away from the Channel Tunnel.

She said on Friday - the day a major incident was declared - her normal 15 minute drive to work took an hour and a half.

"This is a main arterial road through the valley. It has got much busier with the advent of satnav as well. In the last 20 years, it has bought articulated lorries off the main roads who are trying to circumnavigate the queues," she said.

"All we’re trying to do as local residents is go about our daily lives."

On social media, one man reported a journey from Sevenoaks to east Kent taking nearly four hours.

He said: "What would take normally 1 hr 18 mins took additional 2hrs 40 mins. I had to drive out way through villages and towns I would not normally touch."

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Stephen Waggott, from Swindon, set off with his family at 3am for Folkestone. They have now made it to the Eurotunnel terminal and are heading to Spain.

He says: “The diversion routes away from the M20 were the biggest issue”, adding traffic was approaching a small roundabout from several directions.

Stephen says “there seemed to be three lanes of cars moving around a roundabout that would normally be built for one".

But he says once he arrived at the Eurotunnel terminal in Folkestone there were “no issues with border controls”.

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The government must "grasp the nettle" and scale up lorry parking to provide a long-term solution to traffic gridlock in Kent rather than its current "sticking plaster" approach, says the RAC.

Miles-long tailbacks around the Port of Dover have disrupted lorries and thousands of people's summer travel plans over the past three days.

The RAC says this is "stark evidence of how fragile our continental links across the Channel can be".

It calls for investment in extra lorry parking, with facilities for drivers, instead of relying on what it branded an "inadequate solution of turning a motorway into a lorry park".

The current approach to dealing with disruption to services across the English Channel is called Operation Brock.

It involves EU-bound freight traffic using the coastbound carriageway on the M20 where they are queued and released when space at the Port of Dover or the Eurotunnel becomes available.

RAC director Steve Gooding says this brings "massive disruption".

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Jen Knight and her husband Jody from Eastleigh opted to stay overnight in Ashford, hoping that the queues to the Eurotunnel would've eased by this morning.

But, after a "chaotic and arduous" journey which started at 5.30am, they've just arrived.

“The diversion signs around Kent were a joke," Jen tells us.

“The M20 was closed and there was confusion over the diversion routes.

“Eventually we got on the A20 which was slow moving.

“We were moving a mile an hour and in a stationary queue two miles from the Eurotunnel."

When they reached the terminal at Folkestone, Jen says the lanes were filtering into one and “there didn’t seem to be any staff around and the organisation isn’t great".

She adds there didn't seem to be a problem with the passport checks, which "took about a minute, so it must be something else".

Folkestone has become the "hotspot of holiday hell", according to the latest update on the situation on the roads from the AA.

There are still "lengthy delays" heading towards the Eurotunnel terminal in the town, it said, causing a knock-on effect on routes "further up the chain".

The AA said drivers are trying to find alternative routes "using the M2 and then finding ways to drop down into the A20 and the terminal via the back roads".

"Drivers heading to Folkestone need to be prepared," the AA added.

"We have seen that many are waiting for several hours before they get to the terminal so all the pre-journey vehicle checks are key along with food, water and entertainment."

Calls for the infrastructure around the ports to be reviewed have come from passengers queuing to leave the country and residents in east Kent.

Anna Parkinson, who was stuck in traffic waiting for Eurotunnel on Saturday, said: "As we approached, all the roads in all directions were just nose-to-tail. People were out of their cars playing games at the side of the road.

"I think actually the infrastructure around the ports, around the Channel Tunnel, really does need to be looked at, because it's not fair on the locals."

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Some residents turned to social media to talk about the issues.

"Dover [is] not fit for purpose during peak periods and hasn't been for years," one woman wrote on Facebook.

Another man said it was all about the lack of investment and foresight, posting: "Jams on and in the Dover and Folkestone/M20 are almost a weekly occurrence and have been for years."

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Dad-of-three Manesh Luthra left Essex with his family at 4am yesterday and was just outside the Eurotunnel terminal in Folkestone by 5.45am.

He thought they'd arrived in good time for their 7.50am shuttle.

But, as he tells the BBC: “We joined the back of the queue for what was the worse 21 hours experienced.

“We moved metres in hours."

He says the family “wanted to give up numerous times" as there was “no info, no support and no supplies".

Other drivers were cutting into the queue," he adds.

“It was savage, I was worried there would be an accident."

The family eventually got to France around 10pm and travelled two more hours, but were so exhausted they stopped at hotel in Rouen before reaching their destination.

This morning, they set off again.

“I'm calm now but at various points we all broke down," says Manesh.

“I have never experienced anything like this.”

John Keefe, director of public affairs for Eurotunnel, has been responding to the claims of long journey times faced by Georgina (below) and many others.

He said he was confident the "bit we manage" - from check-in to departure - "was working".

"The roads outside are beyond our remit. We're responsible for managing the service... it's the only place we have any responsibility, any authority," he said.

He said passengers were always told to turn up 30 minutes to two hours before departure.

Georgina Keen finally got to her destination in France at 5.30am this morning, after being stuck in queues to get to the Eurotunnel terminal at Folkestone since 7am on Saturday.

“To move the six miles took us 16 hours,” she told the BBC, adding upon reaching the terminal, she was delayed for around four hours waiting to get on a train.

Georgina says "there were no updates" and only had "bog standard replies" from Eurotunnel on Twitter. She says "they were using the sliproads in and around Kent as their holding pen.

“Children were getting into their pyjamas... and brushing their teeth at the side of the road".

She added that all the queues on the A20 coming into the terminal were all Eurotunnel's passengers with no water, no facilities, nothing. "We were treated worse than cattle," she said.

As we've been reporting, food and water was handed out to holidaymakers who were caught up in the queues to the Eurotunnel terminal in Folkestone overnight, the Kent Resilience Forum has said.

Lead for driver welfare, Andy Jeffery, said welfare provisions were not usually delivered at night because of safety issues but when it became clear that some motorists, including families with small children, had been waiting for many hours, it was important to supply them with emergency snacks and drinks.

He said essential supplies were distributed to about 1,200 vehicles waiting on the A20 approach to Eurotunnel.

People have been reminded to bring essential supplies if they are heading through Kent.

Toby Howe, from the Kent Resilience Forum, which which coordinates the county's emergency planning, has told the BBC the current delays are not just going to affect this weekend’s summer getaway.

“It will still be very, very busy throughout the whole summer,” he says.

“We’ve got another busy weekend next weekend, huge numbers of tourists crossing - back to pre-pandemic levels of tourists that are crossing the Channel. In fact in some places it’s been even busier than it was three, four years ago.”