M20 Operation Brock

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Berk
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Re: M20 Operation Brock

Post by Berk »

Of course, if we do ever have a Brexit meltdown, all the government has to do is issue a royal proclamation, and bang, you can have an emergency lorry park, and no public objections (all overruled).

When the emergency subsides, I can’t imagine it would be difficult to make it permanent.
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Re: M20 Operation Brock

Post by A9NWIL »

Berk wrote: Fri Jan 17, 2020 22:47 Of course, if we do ever have a Brexit meltdown, all the government has to do is issue a royal proclamation, and bang, you can have an emergency lorry park, and no public objections (all overruled).

When the emergency subsides, I can’t imagine it would be difficult to make it permanent.
So why dont they just do that to build roads in the first place, it would be so much easier!
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Re: M20 Operation Brock

Post by Berk »

A state of emergency would have to be declared??
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Re: M20 Operation Brock

Post by DB617 »

So, following today's announcement by Gove to expect full border checks on exports, place your bets on whether the Government will:

A: Begin robust emergency preparations for a permanent, sensible method of queuing and processing vehicles as smoothly as possible,
or B: Pretend the announcement didn't happen for six months and then run around like headless chickens trying to get Brock put back in?

or even C: Refuse to implement Brock and end up with Operation Stack?

I really have no faith that anything sensible or reasonable is going to happen in the M20 corridor before no deal day. None at all.
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Re: M20 Operation Brock

Post by Big L »

Moveable barriers, but currently practically zero detail. Although there is a promise that...
the new scheme allows the motorway to retain three lanes, a hard shoulder and 70mph speed limits in both directions.
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Re: M20 Operation Brock

Post by Nathan_A_RF »

Sigh... why can't they just build a lorry park rather than faffing around with all this stuff again. Now the end of the transition period is known and we actually have left the EU now, surely we need a permanent solution and not a semi-temporary-permanent one in the form of a barrier. Even if the carriageway can be fully opened when the barrier is not in use; there's still the immense setup period erecting the barrier will take (especially a concrete one!) and the fact this and the other parts of Brock will still be terrible for all other traffic (M26 shut, A265 being congested on 1 lane sections etc.). Not to mention the fact that if the Lower Thames Crossing is built, there possibly will be more people from East Anglia willing to go to Kent or Europe, adding traffic to the motorway. I can just envisage in a decade's time the chaos that will litter the M20...
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Re: M20 Operation Brock

Post by Berk »

Agreed. A lot of the handwringing for the last couple of years was due to not knowing what sort of arrangements would be in place (whether we would get a deal or not).

We know now that Johnson isn’t particularly interested in getting a deal (or one that doesn’t involve border checks). So that means we should move full steam ahead and start building holding areas now.

We’ll only have ourselves to blame next year if Operation Brock doesn’t work.
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Re: M20 Operation Brock

Post by DB617 »

As I've expressed before, the idea of the long-term Brexit plan being to use a piece of critical Highways England infrastructure as a lorry park is absolutely scraping the bottom of the barrel as far as planning goes. We're not talking 'contingency' plans any more; we could be talking years of extreme border disruption. If the Government wants us being outside the EU with no trade agreement to become 'the norm', we cannot exist in a permanent state of emergency with two motorways modified into stacking areas for the foreseeable.

Can anyone seriously tell me there is no viable land within usable distance of the port, other than the M20, that a Government with a significant amount of warning could start working on? We are by far not the first country to have a border thrust upon us. It is simple negligence, dare I say it wilful negligence, a total lack of interest, to allow this problem to remain outstanding into this Autumn. I detest the people responsible for the situation in Kent, and the ones who are quite happy to see it continue.

One wonders whether the local (Conservative) MP, who made strong protestations about the possibility of the M20 opening as a smart motorway, will be equally concerned about the effective loss of the M20 being part of the Government's permanent plan for Britain outside the EU.
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Re: M20 Operation Brock

Post by A9NWIL »

DB617 wrote: Mon Feb 17, 2020 21:35 As I've expressed before, the idea of the long-term Brexit plan being to use a piece of critical Highways England infrastructure as a lorry park is absolutely scraping the bottom of the barrel as far as planning goes. We're not talking 'contingency' plans any more; we could be talking years of extreme border disruption. If the Government wants us being outside the EU with no trade agreement to become 'the norm', we cannot exist in a permanent state of emergency with two motorways modified into stacking areas for the foreseeable.

Can anyone seriously tell me there is no viable land within usable distance of the port, other than the M20, that a Government with a significant amount of warning could start working on? We are by far not the first country to have a border thrust upon us. It is simple negligence, dare I say it wilful negligence, a total lack of interest, to allow this problem to remain outstanding into this Autumn. I detest the people responsible for the situation in Kent, and the ones who are quite happy to see it continue.

One wonders whether the local (Conservative) MP, who made strong protestations about the possibility of the M20 opening as a smart motorway, will be equally concerned about the effective loss of the M20 being part of the Government's permanent plan for Britain outside the EU.
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Re: M20 Operation Brock

Post by Berk »

That remark is unhelpful. Labour (or any party) wouldn’t do any better. We need enabling legislation, fast.
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Re: M20 Operation Brock

Post by Nathan_A_RF »

Agreed. Whatever government was in power, I'd assume Highway's England would still want to roll out whatever plan they have or had conceived.
DB617 wrote: Mon Feb 17, 2020 21:35 Can anyone seriously tell me there is no viable land within usable distance of the port, other than the M20, that a Government with a significant amount of warning could start working on? We are by far not the first country to have a border thrust upon us. It is simple negligence, dare I say it wilful negligence, a total lack of interest, to allow this problem to remain outstanding into this Autumn. I detest the people responsible for the situation in Kent, and the ones who are quite happy to see it continue.
I remember seeing plans a while back centred around J11, which is easily feasible as there is a large open flat(ish) area to the north and south of the junction (there's even a roundabout on the A20 that could be the entrance to a lorry park). The junction is very overly designed for the amount of traffic it gets and would perfectly suit a location for a lorry park. If that's too close to the channel, or not big enough, there's still the vast swathes of countryside alongside the M20 where Operation Brock is conducted at present. True, it would be preferred to not disrupt the landscape or increase the environmental impact on the surrounding area by covering it in concrete, but certain areas could be managed and constructed with little to no difficulty depending on the status of the land. This would be difficult at J11 as possible sites would just sit outside the North Downs AONB, which would make shielding it necessary to preserve the view. Now I think about it, perhaps one reason this barrier scheme is still going ahead is due to the environmental consequences and uproar if Highways England were to so much as put a square foot of tarmac over a flowerbed.
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Re: M20 Operation Brock

Post by A303Chris »

If you click through the links from the press release you get to this on the improvements and major projects page.

£60 million scheme starting this summer with completion set as December 2020 (temporary resilience), 2022 (completed), so not all the barrier will be in place for two years.

This technology was about when Operation Brock was conceived, so how much money was wasted on last years total mess of the scheme and why didn't they go straight to this. Surely this needs investigation form the audit office.
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Re: M20 Operation Brock

Post by Bryn666 »

A303Chris wrote: Tue Feb 18, 2020 11:57 If you click through the links from the press release you get to this on the improvements and major projects page.

£60 million scheme starting this summer with completion set as December 2020 (temporary resilience), 2022 (completed), so not all the barrier will be in place for two years.

This technology was about when Operation Brock was conceived, so how much money was wasted on last years total mess of the scheme and why didn't they go straight to this. Surely this needs investigation form the audit office.
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Re: M20 Operation Brock

Post by Berk »

Don’t forget too there was a lot of denial about how bad (or “not”) No Deal would be.

We’re basically going to get No Deal conditions next year, so delaying the inevitable makes no sense.
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Re: M20 Operation Brock

Post by A303Chris »

Time to bump this thread as Operation Brock was reinstalled on the M20 over the weekend.

Welcome back the 15 miles slog in the contraflow

Highways England Operation Brock Press Release
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Re: M20 Operation Brock

Post by JammyDodge »

A303Chris wrote: Mon Dec 14, 2020 10:28 Time to bump this thread as Operation Brock was reinstalled on the M20 over the weekend.

Welcome back the 15 miles slog in the contraflow

Highways England Operation Brock Press Release
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Re: M20 Operation Brock

Post by SteveA30 »

HE are stating Operation Stack on here http://www.trafficengland.com/traffic-alerts Was the Operation Brock trial of a week ago not successful?
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Re: M20 Operation Brock

Post by Keiji »

SteveA30 wrote: Mon Dec 21, 2020 11:37 HE are stating Operation Stack on here http://www.trafficengland.com/traffic-alerts Was the Operation Brock trial of a week ago not successful?
Found an answer on HE's Twitter:
Highways England wrote:Op. Stack, and Op. Brock are two different things. At this time we are using Op. Stack, as all freight traffic is being held, unlike Op. Brock which is used to allow relevant paperwork checks to be completed prior to reaching Dover.
https://twitter.com/HighwaysSEAST/statu ... 2899460096

Also an interesting follow up comment from (I'm guessing) a member of the public: (quoting here because navigating Twitter in any way is unnecessarily challenging)
David Edwards wrote:
James Harris wrote:How easy would it be to put Op Brock into place while Op stack is in operation, should the need arise?
Not at all. They're not synonymous. The need is to stack lorries as opposed to check paperwork so Stack is the only viable option. With Kent being Tier 4, Stack should have much less impact than in previous years.
https://twitter.com/D_Edwards/status/13 ... 6944402432

My vague understanding, though, as far as Stack and Brock relate to the M20, was that while Stack closes the eastbound side and leaves the westbound untouched such that eastbound traffic has to divert onto other roads, Brock closes the eastbound carriageway and replaces the westbound carriageway with a 2+2 contraflow at 50mph. This would seem to me to have little to do with the reason for the closure. Am I missing something here?
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Re: M20 Operation Brock

Post by ChrisH »

Isn't the point that Stack is to stack lorries that can't move; while Brock is to provide extra queuing capacity for lorries that can move, but are constrained by border checks?
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Re: M20 Operation Brock

Post by A303Chris »

ChrisH wrote: Mon Dec 21, 2020 13:37 Isn't the point that Stack is to stack lorries that can't move; while Brock is to provide extra queuing capacity for lorries that can move, but are constrained by border checks?
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