London - Britain is to build a huge wall in Calais to try to stop migrants sneaking across the Channel.
UK taxpayers will foot the £2million bill for the barrier stretching nearly a mile along the main motorway to the port.
Construction will start soon, ministers announced on Tuesday.
The 4m concrete wall will replace fencing that has failed to stop stowaways targeting lorries. Before Britain’s vote to leave the EU there was a surge in incursions - mostly from the ‘Jungle’ camp near Calais that houses 10,000 migrants.
Kate Gibbs of the Road Haulage Association said the wall was a ‘scandalous waste of taxpayers’ cash’ that would simply shift problems farther down the road. ‘Money would be much better spent on boosting security along the approach roads,’ she added.
‘What good is this going to do? We are telling our drivers not to stop within 150 miles of Calais so they are not targeted by migrants. This will be a tiny concrete alleyway that will serve very little purpose and not provide any security.’
But immigration minister Robert Goodwill told the Commons home affairs committee that the wall would halt the flow of migrants and keep drivers safe.
The Home Office said the measure would stop stowaways using projectiles in attempts to ‘disrupt, delay or even attack vehicles approaching the port’.
In July official figures showed that one migrant is caught trying to sneak into the UK every six minutes – with 84,088 detentions at the country's borders last year. Most were caught at the ‘juxtaposed controls’ in Calais – effectively Britain’s border. The port, with its Tunnel, is a key destination for thousands of the more than 1million migrants and refugees who illegally entered Europe this year in boats from Turkey and North Africa.
Last month holidaymakers were warned to avoid Calais after motorists were targeted by gangs with chainsaws and metal bars near the Jungle. A number of tourists have reported attacks by migrants from the camp. Last week, three British journalists were injured when a log was hurled at their car, forcing it into the path of a juggernaut.
In June, a French police commissioner said there had been 22,000 breaches of the port road defences in June, compared with just 3,000 in January.
This week French truckers and farmers have blockaded motorways leading into the port in protest at the rising number of assaults.
Goodwill told MPs: ‘The security that we are putting in at the port is being stepped up with better equipment. We are going to start building this big new wall very soon as part of the £17million package we are doing with the French.
‘We’ve done the fence, now we are doing a wall. There is still more to do. We have also invested in space for 200 lorries at Calais so that they have somewhere safe to wait.’
Construction of the wall is expected to be completed by the end of the year.
Tory MP Charlie Elphicke, who represents Dover, said: ‘It is essential to do everything we can to secure the borders of the UK. We need to see action by the French to ensure security at Calais to protect tourists, truckers and trade.’
French interior minister Bernard Cazeneuve pledged on Friday to dismantle the Jungle by the end of the year.
Daily Mail