Plans for a huge lorry park to prevent Operation Stack have been branded as a "knee-jerk reaction".

Matthew Webb, chair of Stanford Parish Council, said the £250 million pledged by George Osborne should be targeted towards solving the cause rather than "treating a symptom".

It comes after Highways England today revealed two sites near the village were the preferred sites and launched its consultation on where to put the lorry park.

Kevin Bown, asset manager for Kent for Highways England, revealed there are four options for how the lorry park - which will cater for a minimum of 3,600 lorries - could be used.

Speaking to the KM's political editor Paul Francis this morning, Mr Bown said this included using it purely for Operation Stack.

The second option was to "deal with general disruption" at the Port of Dover and Eurotunnel which could accommodate "excess traffic".

Mr Bown added: "The third option is to also help deal with an issue that is a major concern to communities in Kent and that is overnight parking, either in illegal places such as hard shoulder or inappropriate places outside people's front doors.

"It could be used to accommodate those lorries but we're particularly interested in receiving comments on how that would operate in practice.

"The fourth is to create a truck stop and that's like a motorway services but it's specifically geared for lorries."

But Cllr Webb said: "It's clearly not great for the village. It's good the government has made this funding available to help improve Stack and alleviate the problems across Kent.

"However I'm firmly convinced the building of a lorry park is not the solution to Operation Stack.

"It's a knee-jerk reaction to the large frequency of Stack this year and the poor publicity that caused for the government.

"But all it will seek to do is resolve a symptom of Stack. What the government should be doing is seeking to solve the problems that cause Stack - industrial action by French ferry workers and disruption by migrants to the operation in the Channel Tunnel."

Cllr Webb said villagers are "very upset" by the announcement today.

He said they were raising issues about disruption to their day-to-day lives, noise, pollution and potential crime "from having x-thousand drivers hemmed into a lorry park".

He criticised MP Damian Collins for wanting to have "his five minutes of fame".

"He wants to shout from the rooftops that this is something he achieved.

"Anyone with any sense can see this is treating a symptom and you don't spend a quarter of a billion pounds on treating a symptom, you seek to sort out the underlying causes."