Hauliers still counting cost of Calais crisis

UK fleets operating on the Continent are continuing to count the cost of the ongoing migrant situation at Calais.

The Road Haulage Association (RHA), which has repeatedly called for French military intervention over the summer to help stem the crisis, has welcomed a new agreement between the UK and French governments which aims to ameliorate the migrant situation at the Port – while also seeking assurance that the government will work closely with the RHA to help mitigate the impact on fleet operators.

The new agreement, signed by UK home secretary Theresa May and the French interior minister Bernard Cazeneuve, covers four key areas: ensuring effective security at the port and the Channel Tunnel; outlining improved collaboration between the countries’ respective law enforcement agencies; the management of the existing migrant situation at Calais; and European and international action.

Key measures are to include additional French police deployment, and UK investment in security around the Eurotunnel railhead, and within the tunnel itself. Additional freight search teams, “to drive down the number of clandestine stowaways and the direct risk to life associated with [migration] attempts,” would also be deployed, the agreement stated.

Meanwhile, each state said it would nominate a ‘gold commander’ “to give unified authority for work to understand, deter, disrupt and interdict criminal activity associated with bringing would-be migrants to the Nord Pas-de-Calais or into the United Kingdom.”

In addition, a joint command and control centre would be established in Calais “to intensify cooperation against organised immigration crime.”

In late August, reports also emerged of plans for a new camp to provide basic humanitarian facilities for Calais migrants, which will be funded by the European Union to the tune of €5 million.

Richard Burnett, chief executive at the RHA (pictured, right), said that government collaboration with the association would be: “vital, particularly if the location of attacks on our members’ vehicles moves further out from the Port and Tunnel areas as we suspect will be the case.”

Burnett had previously challenged the prime minister David Cameron to go with him to Calais to: “see for himself the appalling conditions that drivers are facing.”

Earlier in the summer, trade association bosses provided stark evidence to MPs about the impact on hauliers of the migrant situation at the Port of Calais – an issue exacerbated by recent ferry strikes, which left drivers stranded for days on both sides of the English Channel.

The Freight Transport Association estimated at one stage that the delays were costing the UK’s logistics industry around £750,000 per day, and has called for compensation from the French government; while the Department for Transport was forced to temporarily relax EU drivers’ hours rules for those stuck on the M20 in Kent while Operation Stack was in effect – a move FTA called a “pragmatic approach to one part of a difficult situation.”