- May 7, 2011
- 4,807
- 46,280
- Funster No
- 16,300
- MH
- T Line 785
- Exp
- motorhoming since 1979
FRENCH ROADS IN APRIL
April is a relatively busy month on the roads due to the Easter holiday traffic. Bison Fute predicts that traffic conditions in France will be “difficult” on the 4th, 10th, 17th, 18th, 24th, 25th & 30th April with the 4th also being “very difficult” but just in the Rhone-Alpes area.
POSSIBLE PASSPORT CONTROL DELAYS
Funsters heading for France over the Easter school break have been warned to leave plenty of time to get to the ferry port as new passport checks at Channel ports could mean long delays. The new checks start on April 8 and every passenger’s passport will be checked in the new crackdown, the first for 17 years. UK home secretary Theresa May has already warned of possible “public order problems” on the roads once the checks start. She told the Commons home affairs select committee yesterday she was considering whether coach passengers should be exempted but as part of “contingency measures in place if there are public order problems”. Dover, which sees up to 50 sailings a day and which handles 60% of UK continental ferry traffic, may face acute problems – with the UK Chamber of Shipping warning that as tourist and freight vehicles were checked extended queues could reach 650 vehicles or up to 8km. Eurotunnel, too, which depends on speedy turnaround to meet service schedules on both sides of the Channel, could be affected as it deals with 12,000 cars on peak days. Brittany Ferries has said it is “confident that our UK ports will not see any delays as a result of exit checks because Brittany Ferries has already been swiping passports at check-in for the past three years. Thus, the transaction time for each car we check-in will remain largely unchanged.”
