A major emergency exercise will take place at the Port of Dover next month, involving organisations and agencies from across Kent.

Staff will be in action on Saturday November 9 dealing with a marine incident which will start in mid-Channel - involving a ferry heading for Dover - allowing multi-agency emergency procedures to be extensively tested.

The police, fire service, ambulance, coastguard, Kent County Council, Dover, Shepway and Thanet district councils, Environment Agency, P&O Ferries, G4S and Border Force officials will be involved.

The port will remain open throughout the exercise.

Port chief executive Tim Waggott said: “Responsible for over 12-13 million passengers, almost five million vehicles and £80 billion of trade each year, such exercises are vital to ensuring that we can effectively and professionally deal with potential incidents in the best way possible for our customers and for UK plc.

“Working with our partners in Kent is extremely important to us and crucial to the resilience of our operations. We take the safety and security of the port and our customers very seriously and such exercises are an essential part of that.”

P&O Ferries is providing a vessel so that the exercise can be run as realistically as possible. Kent Police will be working together with Port of Dover Police in responding to the “emergency”.

Dover District Council be responsible for a survivor reception centre to look after the affected customers who will be played by volunteers.