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A group of Sikh volunteers have tried to lift the spirits of the truckers stranded in Kent with the delivery of 1,000 Domino’s pizzas amid the ongoing border chaos.
Thousands of foreign drivers are likely to spend Christmas stuck in the UK, as the government has indicated that the queues will not be moving for at least another 24 hours.
Khalsa Aid volunteers coordinated deliveries yesterday and had already provided hundreds of chickpea curries to stranded motorists a day earlier.
Maidenhead volunteers traveled more than 80 miles to help, while some of the group’s Langar Aid members traveled more than 150 miles from Coventry.
Volunteers from the Guru Nanak Darbar temple in Gravesend cooked the meals, while staff from the Salvation Army Southeast Division also helped deliver food. Ramsgate Football Club also participated, delivering 200 pizzas to drivers.
Sikh volunteers from Khalsa Aid and workers from Domino’s Pizza stand outside the branch in Sittingbourne, Kent, preparing to deliver fresh pizzas to stranded truck drivers.
The Sikh volunteer group tries to lift the spirits of stranded truck drivers in Kent last night with a delivery of 1,000 Domino’s pizzas amid the ongoing border chaos.
Volunteers involved in the distribution of hot meals to truckers are shown last night
Ravinder Singh, founder of Khalsa Aid, which is based in Maidenhead, said: “We in Sikhism have the concept of langar, which means communal cooking.
“We are British Sikhs and the least we can do is put into practice our seasonal goodwill: two days after Christmas we have people on our soil who are back home and they don’t know what is happening.”
Many truckers have eaten their last provisions on the side of the road, and some of the 6,000 trucks have been parked on the A2 since Sunday.
Singh added: ‘Seeing a lone truck driver in their cab on a horrible, humid night on the side of the freeway prompts you to do more for them.
“They were very grateful, but you could see they were depressed because they weren’t sure they were going to get home for Christmas.”
Earlier this week, Khalsa Aid also made hundreds of chickpea curries for truck drivers.
Sikh volunteers also handed out snacks and bottles of water to stranded drivers in Kent.
Sikh volunteers delivered drinks and snacks to stranded drivers earlier this week.
Transport Secretary Grant Shapps said the trucks will start moving on Christmas Day as French firefighters and the British military work with NHS Test and Trace to continue testing drivers.
Carriers must return a negative coronavirus result made in the last 72 hours before crossing the Canal.
The head of the Road Transport Association has accused France of treating drivers as ‘pawns in a bigger game’ as the UK is on the verge of negotiating a deal with the EU, a charge that the French have repeatedly denied.
Richard Burnett was sympathetic to the carriers, a small number of whom clashed with police this week after they were prevented from heading to the mainland, adding: “ It appears to be a lever that the French have specifically used around the Brexit negotiations ”.
He told the BBC: “We understand that we don’t want the virus to spread, but I think we have to pretty much think about some of the reasons why this has happened.”
Burnett added that he was “ relieved ” that carriers could move after French authorities demanded a negative test following the emergence of a new, more transmissible coronavirus strain in the UK, but added that it would “ take some time. ” eliminate delay.
He added that the coronavirus infection rates of truck drivers are much lower than those of workers in other sectors, between 3 and 6 percent.
Shapps said France and the UK had agreed to keep the border at Dover, the Eurotunnel and Calais open “over Christmas” so that citizens and carriers were cleared “as soon as possible.”
He promised that the ferries will set sail on Christmas Day and Boxing Day, as 26 French firefighters brought 10,000 additional tests to the port on Thursday to help speed up the process.
He said on Twitter: ‘In addition to ensuring that ferries now sail on Christmas and Boxing Day, we also have great cooperation from French firefighters working with NHS Test and Trace and our brilliant army in a great effort to eliminate the delay created by the closure of the French border.
Truck drivers queue on the M20 motorway to enter the Port of Dover in Kent this morning
French firefighters rub truck and van drivers to test for Covid-19 in the Port of Dover today
France’s ambassador to the UK Catherine Colonna added that the two countries were “neighbors, partners, allies and (yes) friends.”
A disused airfield in Manston has become the main testing center for carriers, and drivers must self-administer swabs in their cabs under supervision.
Trucks began entering the Eurotunnel again on Wednesday after drivers began producing negative Covid-19 results, but it is feared that it could take days to run all the tests.
Around 170 servicemen, including 36 from the Engineer Regiment and 1 Irish Guard, are helping with the tests.
