A parish council is pushing for the Department for Transport to start again with its "grossly misleading" plans for a Brexit border park at Whitfield, by submitting plans "honestly and transparently next time".

It comes as MP for Dover Natalie Elphicke hailed a decision to lengthen the engagement period for the customs clearance site to February 10.

She said the decision by transport minister Rachel Maclean is proof the Department for Transport (DfT) is committed to ensuring that the views and concerns of local residents are properly considered.

But Guston parish council chairman Tracey Creed said she strongly feels the extension, although welcomed, is a bi-product of the parish council's intervention over the DfT's plans to latch on to the Fastrack scheme, letting lorries from the Brexit park use some of the bus and cycle lane.

On January 13 Kent County Council had to put the Fastrack scheme on hold after Cllr Geoff Lymer took a public stand against his own Tory party "to protect a government department from breaching the law" by piggy-backing on the bus scheme.

KCC's head of planning, Sharon Thompson is now assessing if she needs to change her recommendation, which was previously to pass the scheme.

Cllr Creed said: "It has become clear that HGVs will be using at least 900m of the new road to enter and exit the Inland Border Clearance site. A road that was supposed to be used for the fast-track bus, pedestrians and cyclists, providing a greener alternative to travel.

"We will be submitting further comment to KCC today (Monday) expressing how grossly misleading this application is.

"We will be pushing for this application to go back to the drawing board and be re-submitted honestly and transparently, with the correct planning assessments to take into account two major planning applications that are happening in the same area."

The plans are to turn the site off White Cliffs Business Park into a customs clearance site to prevent additional border checks brought by Brexit from causing gridlock.

The field, previously agricultural, links the Buckland part of Whitfield with and Guston. It is subject to a Special Development Order (SDO) a new temporary planning permission for developmenting the infrastructure needed to check and process vehicles on entry to the UK as well as facilities for drivers and border processing agents.

Residents in St Martin's Road and Dover Road will be the most affected, looking out onto a paved paradise customs parking lot.

Residents have continually criticised the lack of information throughout, which they say even continued beyond the launch of the engagement period on January 13.

Cllr Creed described the information as "grossly inadequate and insufficient for purpose".

The chairman added: "To date details on the site proposal have been extremely limited. A very basic map has been provided of the site. The map has no measurements to scale so residents are unable to calculate the true distance the lorries will be from their homes.

"The residents have grave concerns over the diversion of the Byway ER54 which is being re-routed through a minimum 25m buffer zone at the perimeter of their homes.

"The byway is open to all traffic and is already troubled by noisy off-road bikes. Their concerns are not being listened to at all by the DfT.

St Martin's Road resident Jane Dunford, who last week described this as "one nightmare replacing another" said today: "This would be very noisy and intrusive and certainly devastate any privacy we may still have.

"There is a simple and straight forward solution for this: If the by-way continues to run down side of fast track, which it already runs down quite a distance, and exits onto Dover Road for a short way along the road and then rejoins. As 19% of the North Downs Way already runs in part on roads, this is perfectly doable.

"They are still not considering the residents bordering this at all and are just stomping all over us. Can't they leave us some peace and quiet?"

Their calls for an environmental buffer zone of 75m - 50m at the least - have not been agreed. There is no specification of the position and height of fences and nothing about the fabric and height of the buildings that will be used by customs and Defra.

Dover Road resident Stuart Bishop said: "This is a smokescreen to say they are considering local views.

"It is not for us, it is for the DfT.

"Their use of the fast track was kept secret and the formal planning for Dover Fast Track did not include the SDO or many more people would have objected.

"This is for the DfT to buy them more time and not for residents.

"Natalie Elphicke continues to be elusive and her Facebook picture of her at the site I feel was strategically taken to show B&Q and not the impact on our hamlet.

"It is useful people have more time to respond but let’s be clear this is for their benefit, not ours.

"The fact that correspondence previous to the engagement period that was significant and is not being considered, and that only comments during the engagement period are being considered despite us fighting for months beforehand, demonstrated this in volumes."

Natalie Elohicke said: "During extensive discussions with Ministers at the Department for Transport, MP for Dover & Deal Natalie Elphicke has continued to highlight the importance of local engagement regarding the proposed Border Facility development at the White Cliffs site.

Rachel Maclean, Minister at the Department for Transport, has confirmed that the engagement period has been extended until 10th February to allow residents more time to provide feedback on the proposals and additional information has been provided by the Department for residents to consider.

Natalie Elphicke, MP for Dover & Deal, said:

“I welcome the extension of the engagement period, which signifies the Department’s continuing commitment to ensuring that the views and concerns of local residents are properly considered.

“The longer engagement period will also allow residents to take into consideration more detail that has been provided about the proposed route of the Dover Fastrack to access the site, as well as details related to traffic management and HGV capacity.

“I will continue to emphasise the importance of residents’ views on these proposals and I have been assured that the Department for Transport is taking the community engagement process very seriously.”

You can read about the pans for the Brexit Inland Border Point (IBP) and comment by clicking here.

Read more: All the latest news from Dover