Dover Eastern plans charge for parking
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• by Karon Miles Parking is to get tougher at Dover's Eastern Docks, where free parking is to be cut by 50%.
By the end of the year Dover Harbour Board will be demanding an £8.50 parking charge for trucks waiting for more than 12 hours—the free waiting time is currently 24 hours.
The £8.50 fee for six hours is designed to encourage drivers, including East Europeans, to avoid clogging up the parking area, particularly at peak periods when the harbour board says there is not enough room for recently docked trucks.
It is also expected to discourage operators from using the area as an unofficial operating centre: up to 10 trailers a day are left there.
Around 1.6 million trucks a year pass through Dover, many of them fighting for space in the Eastern Dock's car park, which has space for just 300 HGVs.
But the charge is bound to anger drivers, who have already had their Customs clearance facilities at the port downgraded. This summer's transfer of clearance from Dover's Eastern to Western Docks has left drivers with no shower facilities at the separate 175-truck parking area.
Drivers attempting to rest find their time punctuated by the new demands of logging their papers within two hours of arrival, receiving clearance and then taking four more hours of free time. After that drivers can pay 28.50 for six hours further parking.
"It (the charge] is not popular with the drivers," concedes Robin Dodridge, the harbour board's landsite services manager.
The harbour board says the Customs facilities are poorer than those they replaced at the Eastern Docks, partly because East European drivers were clogging up the parking there without spending any money at the restaurant.
At the old Customs site drivers could park free of charge for up to 24 hours.