Ministers 'misleading public' after denying that plans to 'turn Kent into a giant lorry park' are because of Brexit

Ministers have been accused of misleading the public after denying that plans to “turn most of Kent into a giant lorry park” are because of Brexit.

Work is underway to convert four lanes of a 13-mile stretch of the M20 motorway to allow hundreds of articulated lorries to park up if they are delayed in reaching the Port of Dover.

The Department for Transport (DfT) claimed the work was simply an improvement on the existing Operation Stack, a way of managing traffic used many times to cope with “serious disruption to cross-channel transport”.

But it has now emerged that the project has been renamed Operation Brock – which Kent County Council says stands for “Brexit Operations Across Kent”.

Vast extra space for lorries will be needed if the Brexit talks fail and, as Theresa May has threatened, the UK crashes out of the EU without a deal next year.

There will be massive disruption if any extra checks are required in future – with one study warning of immediate 20-mile tailbacks at Dover if the time taken to clear customs merely doubles from the current two minutes.

Virendra Sharma, a Labour MP and supporter of the anti-Brexit Best for Britain group, said: “The government is trying to hide the devastating impact of their Brexit policy.

“Food will rot on the motorway and jobs are at risk as manufacturing supply chains are muddled and slowed by Brexit. We cannot let ministers use secrecy to railroad the concerns of councils about Brexit.”

And Francis Grove-White, deputy director of the pro-EU Open Britain group, said: “It’s disgraceful that the government seems to be trying to hide the consequences of their destructive Brexit from the very people who will be most affected by them.”

As The Independent revealed last month, Highways England has acknowledged there is no chance of the M20 work being ready for exit day next March.

Local councils in Kent are now up in arms because a permanent solution to the looming crisis will not be in place until “2023 at the earliest”.

Kent County Council has warned the planning application for a major stand alone lorry park will not even be considered until next year – and will not be in place for at least another five years.

It has told ministers this “is not only frustrating but potentially damaging to the UK economy as well as disrupting the daily life of Kent residents and visitors”.

A separate Brexit impact report by Dover District Council agrees that “the ‘temporary' traffic-management system Operation Brock will be in force for some time”.

However, the DfT insisted Brock was “simply an operational name” and denied it was “an acronym related to Brexit”.

A spokeswoman said: “Work on Project Brock would have taken place regardless of Brexit to improve contingency arrangements for a range of scenarios which could result in cross-Channel disruption, including bad weather and industrial action.”

Its statement, in May, made no mention of Operation Brock, referring instead to “our work to improve on the current Operation Stack arrangements and ensure that traffic can keep flowing on the M20 even in the event of serious disruption to cross-channel transport”.

It also announced “a package of measures to tackle the blight of fly parking across the southeast and other parts of the country, including plans to increase overnight lorry parking capacity”.

Industry sources in Kent told Sky News that the government feared its plans for a lorry park on the key motorway to the channel would be linked to the growing risk of a no-deal Brexit.