By Chathushka Perera
London, UK (CWBN)_ Owing to the previously reported 48 hour French travel ban on the UK, owing to the discovery of a new and highly transmissible strain of Covid-19, several freight haulers are stuck in long queues outside ports and the Euro tunnel.
Some of trucks are reportedly carrying food and medicine. British Transport Secretary, Grant Shapps said that the issue is not “specific problem” at the moment, although it does “have an impact”.
He added that around 4000 trucks expected to at Dover and 1800 at the Euro tunnel currently are reportedly stuck, which is about 20 percent of the 32,000 freight shippments, while the remainder are mostly “unaccompanied”.
It remains unclear how long the ban would persist. It is assured that the European Union would be coordinating its response to the development within the day.
Shapps told SkyNews that “immediately as soon as the French said, perhaps slightly surprisingly, that they would stop hauliers rather than just passengers, we were in touch with a group known as the Kent Resilience Forum. They are well used to planning for exactly these kind of circumstances.”
As previously reported, several other European states, including Netherlands, Germany, Italy and Belgium have imposed travel bans against the UK.
