How does Operation Brock impact you?

Cllr David Burton, Leader of Maidstone Borough Council:

“The implementation of Operation Brock causes significant disruption to residents and businesses of Maidstone. We know that it is needed as part of the current plan to manage the volume of both freight and tourist traffic using the Port of Dover and Eurotunnel when queues build up. This can occur for a variety of reasons. The number of occasions when Op Brock is in place and the impact for our community, businesses and people travelling to and around the borough are unacceptable. This situation cannot be allowed to continue.

We need your help to build the case for change. So we want to hear from you about the impacts that you experience when Op Brock is in place – for your personal lives and working lives – so that we can build a picture of environmental, social and economic impacts.

Operation Brock is not a long term or permanent solution for the border control issues. We cannot tolerate this becoming the “new normal”.

So we also need to look at alterative solutions. We would also like to hear your views on this.

My personal view is that there needs to be sufficient off road lorry parking in the vicinity of the ports and this would help manage some occasions with high freight and tourist traffic queues. I know that others suggest a scheme to hold vehicles further up country and I will not rule this out although there would be operational challenges to how this would work and be enforced. Technology has enabled us to work productively throughout the pandemic in many walks of life – technology could also offers solutions to these challenges.

We want Maidstone to be a Borough that works for everyone, with residents and local businesses at the heart of our decision making and would really like to hear from you about how this disruption has impacted on your lives and ideas for alternative ways forward, so that I can take this evidence to Government to demand action to prevent this from going on forever."

How can you get involved?

1. Experiences - Share your experiences of Operation Brock. We want to know more how Operation Brock impacts on you, your life, your local area or your business. Tell us about your experiences (below). We encourage you to comment on the posts left by other residents whose experiences you may share.

2. Ideas - Tell us your ideas about what can be done to improve the effect Operation Brock has on you, your life, your local area or your business when it is in operation.

3. Impact - Take part in our quick poll (on the right) to tell us what level of impact Operation Brock has had on you.

4. Location - Use our map to show us where in the borough you've experienced issues due to Operation Brock.

What Next

We will be gathering this information up until 2 October 2022, this timeframe may be extended based on the response or to gather further information and feedback.