by Thom Morris

Hundreds of travellers have been stuck in queues for up to two hours attempting to cross the channel via Eurotunnel.

As cars, vans and lorries approached the checkpoint at Folkestone everything ground to a halt. Travellers faced a wait of up to an hour to get to passport control.

One driver said of the operator, whose website boasts "speed, ease and reliability": “We’ve just been sitting here and we’ve moved about 100 yards. Other cars keep pulling out in front of us and switching lanes.”

Many passengers were seen walking along with their cars to stretch their legs. One member of staff at the checkpoint said: “It’s just chaos here. We’ve got people who were meant to be travelling yesterday wanting to get aboard as well as everyone who was booked in for today.”

Meanwhile Eurostar passengers at St Pancras have been left sitting at the London station as all services today were cancelled.

Eurostar has said that it does not expect services to be back to normal until after Christmas.

Questions are now being raised about why Eurotunnel passengers are able to cross the Channel, but not Eurostar.