UK – Operation Stack

Operation stack on the M20 had reached day four.    Up to 4000 trucks travel between the UK and Europe each day and over 1000 per day had been building up on the M20 in Kent, as a result of the strike in France.

With temperatures soring to 34°C + drivers were experiencing serious discomfort having been sat in their lorries for days.  Many drivers had run out of water and food, and conditions were not set to change as the industrial action in Calais had not been called off.   It was going to take days to clear the backlog of vehicles.

RRT team leader Stuart Bell received a call from Bronze Command and agreed to assemble a volunteer team to provide food and drink for up to 700 at risk cases.   The British Red Cross had offered 100 meals but no assistance to distribute the food

The RRT volunteer team assembled on site and distributed nearly 1200 drinks and 1500 light snacks.   Over the next 3 days the teams worked tirelessly throughout the day to distribute water that had been donated.   The RRT team could see that there was a greater need than just water so donated and distributed a further £400 worth of food to urgent cases.

2000 sandwiches were delivered to the truck drivers with the rrt travelling along the M20 with police escort!    The rrt team received some very generous donations of food from local supermarkets and the Plymouth Brethren Christian Church communities from Canterbury and surrounding area

One eye witness at the scene today said – “if you think about it we have up to four lanes of trucks now that phase 4 of operation stack has been implemented and this is really 50 miles of vehicles many with two drivers so you have several thousand people down here – all hungry and frustrated.”