Children stuck on dozens of coaches at Dover waiting for more than 12 hours to cross the Channel are falling ill while loos at the port have run out of toilet paper. The Port of Dover, which has declared a critical incident, said the delays were “due to lengthy French border processes and sheer volume”.
One frustrated coach driver, who has a party of 48 kids from Swansea waiting to board a ferry to get to Claviere in Italy for a week's ski trip, said some of the children are being “physically sick” after not eating a substantial meal for more than 15 hours. Robert Kordula, who works for Barns Coaches, said he has not been updated by anyone about their current wait time for a ferry - despite being stuck at the port for in excess of 12 hours as of Saturday morning. The coach set off with two others from Swansea on Friday lunchtime with around 200 children in total.
After a long nine-hour drive to the Dover port, Mr Kordula swapped shifts with the driver on board to take over the rest of the journey. He said they have been stuck at the Dover port since 9.15pm on Friday night and were still waiting behind around 50 coaches to board a ferry across the Channel.
The 51-year-old, who has been a coach driver for a year, said: “The journey started in Swansea and the other drivers picked the children up around lunchtime. Three coaches picked up around 200 children to bring them on a week long ski trip in Claviere in Italy.
“The journey took a long time due to bad weather and hold-ups on the M25. When they finally got down to Dover, we did a driver swap over and this is when I began to drive the coach.
“They arrived at the Dover port at 9.15pm last night and we have been stuck here ever since. We were first told to go to the cruise terminal and do our advance pass information checks with P&O cruises, which we did not get to do.
“We were then told to go to the service station called Stop 24 about 15 miles up the road to wait. We got there and the service station was closed, which is ironic as it is called Stop 24 and meant to be open for 24 hours.
“The only facilities the coaches and children had access to was a small petrol station, which due to the capacity of people couldn’t cope. There wasn't enough food and the toilets ran out of toilet paper.
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“We received no updates all night, but then at 6am this morning we were told to return to the cruise terminal and we have been there ever since. It is now 10.15am, more than 12 hours since we arrived at the port, and we have not had any updates and don’t know when or if we will be able to get on a ferry any time soon.
“When we arrived back at the cruise terminal at 6am people handed out KitKats, crisps and bottles of water which was very good. But the kids are not doing very well.
"Some of them are being physically sick as they have not had a substantial meal for around 15 hours due to the journey down here on top of the wait time. We are moving very slowly now towards the ferry, but there are coaches parked at every angle and we do not know when we will board.
“Me and the other drivers are also running out of time. Two drivers can only drive for up to 21 hours, so soon we will need to send more drivers down to change over, which will add more time onto the journey for the children.
“There are about 50 coaches parked up around us at the moment. One of my colleagues who has been a coach driver for over 25 years has never seen anything like it.
“The kids have lost a day of skiing already and skiing isn’t a cheap school trip. I feel sorry for them and it's not fair on the thousands of kids stuck in this situation.
“It is the French borders that seem to be slow. Some coaches are also still stuck at the service station Stop 24 as they arrived a couple hours after us.”
Just before 9am, a spokesman for the port said: “Coach waiting time is still several hours, but tourist cars are getting through OK.”
P&O Ferries also apologised for the wait times for coaches sailing from Dover, while DFDS said it is expecting a busy weekend and advised passengers to allow extra time to complete border and check-in controls.
A statement from the port said: “The Port of Dover is deeply frustrated by last night’s and this morning’s situation and particularly so on behalf of all the ferry operators’ coach passengers who have had to endure such a long wait at the port. Whilst freight and car traffic was processed steadily regardless of the additional challenging weather conditions and high seasonal volumes, coach traffic suffered significant delays due to lengthy French border processes and sheer volume.
“Despite considerable pre-planning with our ferry operators, border agency partners and the Kent Resilience Forum, and the success of similar plans for processing substantial numbers of coaches during the most recent half-term period, the additional coach bookings taken by ferry operators for Easter has impacted operations for the port.”
