Members of two communities vividly described the maddening effects of Dover’s traffic queuing system.

Aycliffe families in Dover say they have had to listen to lorry horns blasting day and night because of the Traffic Assessment Project (TAP).

And neighbours in Capel-le-Ferne have lorries thundering through the B2011 when truckers use it as a rat run.

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Details were revealed after Dover MP Charlie Elphicke held a public meeting at Aycliffe Church Centre last Friday.

More than 60 residents attended, leading to standing room only.

Trevor Osborne, of Old Folkestone Road, Aycliffe, said afterwards: “There is the noise of beeping, tooting and revving-up of engines at night time.

“Some nights it’s not just a toot-toot. Drivers sit there with their hand on the horn for two or three minutes sometimes, and their horns are loud.”

Truckers make the noise when they are held up by traffic lights used for the TAP to stop too many vehicles, especially lorries, swamping central Dover.

Lorries are held on the neighbouring A20, as little as 20 yards from the Aycliffe estate.

Meanwhile, Bruce Knight-Smith, of New Dover Road, Capel-le-Ferne, told of his village being used as a rat run when lorries try to avoid the TAP.

He said: “It’s been horrendous. For the last three months we’ve been waking up at 2.30 every morning and been unable to get to sleep.”

Mr Knight-Smith had told the meeting: “The traffic going through our village is like thunder. It’s horrific. Why is there no control?”

Other Capel-le-Ferne residents told of 40-tonne lorries “hurtling down” their main road.

Parish clerk Maureen Leppard said she had repeatedly written to Highways England about the problem and parish council chairman Keith Pilcher said that Capel had been “split in two” by the TAP.

The meeting heard that Alkham Valley Road and Folkestone Road at Maxton and central Dover were also being used as rat-runs.

Simon Jones, regional director for Highways England, said his agency and the Port of Dover were looking to redirect trucks onto the A2/M2 rather than M20/A20.

A signage system would be used all the way back to the M25 but there would have to be liaising with Kent Highways, he said.

Highways England had been called on by Aycliffe residents to move the TAP lights further back from their estate.

But it had refused, saying that would lead to tailbacks going into the Round Hill Tunnels at Folkestone.

Aycliffe resident Gary Dodd challenged this, showing a photograph of a traffic queue allowed to build up in the coastbound tunnel during Operation Stack.

Mr Jones, said that there needed to be a buffer zone for traffic before it went from to 70mph to a 40mph zone with a possible queue.

He said that the TAP had been used 42 times this year and only once overnight, on May 27, and its use meant less need for Operation Stack.

For the full story see this week's Dover Mercury and Folkestone and Hythe Express.