The Department for Transport has awarded a 12-month contract to disaster response charity, RE:ACT, which was set up by the former head of the British armed forces and delivers humanitarian aid to vulnerable people across the globe, including in Ukraine.
The £200,000 contract will provide food and water to HGV drivers trapped in queues in Kent.
The plan covers all of Kent’s roads, but the council said that “the focus, per force, in recent years has been on the regular disruptions to the road networks leading to the Channel Tunnel and Port of Dover.
“The plan in particular deals with the distribution of food and water supplies to those queues of vehicles.”
The council added: “After the events of Christmas 2020 where prolonged delays resulted from the border being closed for two days, it was recognised that local response capabilities had been severely overstretched.
“It was agreed with the DfT that a new centrally funded procurement and distribution plan was required to respond to events that were triggered by national events and where they were going to last for longer than 1-2 days.”
