A wall is to be built in Calais to deter refugees and migrants from attempting to board lorries destined for the UK, said the UK’s new immigration minister on Tuesday.
“People are still getting through,” Robert Goodwill said “We have done the fences. Now we are doing the wall,” the new immigration minister told the Commons home affairs committee.
The “big, new wall” will stand four metres high and stretch for one kilometre at a cost £1.9 million. The effort is part of a £17 million package of joint Anglo-French measures to tighten security at the port.
Goodwill said: “We are going to start building this big, new wall as part of the £17m package we are doing with the French. 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.”
The wall’s two sections will be on either side of the port’s main dual-carriageway approach road, the Rocade, in the hope of protecting vehicles which have increasingly come under threat.
Migrants waiting to smuggle themselves into the UK have used rocks, shopping trolleys and tree trunks in an effort to bring vehicles to a halt so they can get onboard.
The UK’s Road Haulage Association said the money would be much better spent on increasing security along the approach roads.
François Guennoc of Auberge des Migrants, a French aid group working in Calais, said: “This wall is the latest extension to kilometres of fencing and security surveillance already in place. It will just result in people going further to get round it.
“When you put walls up anywhere in the world, people find ways to go round them. It’s a waste of money. It could make it more dangerous for people, it will push up tariffs for people smugglers and people will end up taking more risks.”
