{"id":600951,"date":"2026-05-24T05:29:14","date_gmt":"2026-05-24T05:29:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/600951\/"},"modified":"2026-05-24T05:29:14","modified_gmt":"2026-05-24T05:29:14","slug":"dover-bank-holiday-queues-france-suspends-extra-eu-border-checks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/600951\/","title":{"rendered":"Dover bank holiday queues: France suspends extra EU border checks"},"content":{"rendered":"

Traffic now ‘free-flowing’ after extra EU border checks suspended at Doverpublished at 15:42 BST 23 May<\/p>\n

15:42 BST 23 May<\/p>\n

\"TrafficImage source, PA MediaImage caption, <\/p>\n

There were also long queues on Friday ahead of the bank holiday weekend<\/p>\n

The Port of Dover says traffic is now “free-flowing” after French authorities suspended extra EU border checks earlier today. <\/p>\n

Queues remain in the check-in area and the approach lanes for ferry operators, the port says, but it is an improvement on earlier in the day when waiting times were hours long. There were also long queues on Friday.<\/p>\n

The May bank holiday was always going to be a test for the new EU digital border system – the port’s CEO Doug Bannister says more than 8,000 cars were booked today alone. <\/p>\n

“It\u2019s taken me six hours to get on my ferry today,” driver Jon Lelliot tells the BBC. “The delays of 90 minutes were only once you reached the port itself. The tailbacks on the road into Dover took hours to move through.”<\/p>\n

The new Entry\/Exit System, or EES, was introduced in October last year but has been rolled out gradually. It replaces passport stamping with digitally recorded entries, with those travelling on a UK passport registering biometric details.<\/p>\n

French authorities had not yet switched on the machines that will take fingerprints and photos under EES, but they still had to create profiles for travellers linked to the new system.<\/p>\n

“Despite having assurances from authorities from our government and the French around how this would work, it really was slow processing this morning,” Bannister tells the BBC, adding that “we’re all quite frustrated”.<\/p>\n

We’re now bringing our live coverage to a close but you can read more in our story<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Traffic now ‘free-flowing’ after extra EU border checks suspended at Doverpublished at 15:42 BST 23 May 15:42 BST…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":599848,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-600951","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-news","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/600951","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=600951"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/600951\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/599848"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=600951"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=600951"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=600951"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}