The county's tourism agency says it has secured a meeting with government officials to discuss a Brexit resilience fund for the sector.

Last month, Visit Kent's new CEO Deirdre Wells wrote to Jeremy Wright MP, secretary of state for digital, culture, media and sport to outline plans and appeal for funding for a Brexit resilience fund for Kent tourism businesses.

And this week she received an initial response from Michael Ellis, minister for arts, heritage and tourism, as the responsible minister for this policy area.

A spokesman for Visit Kent said: "He acknowledges the concern of tourism stakeholders in Kent and expresses a desire to work alongside us to mitigate the risks of negative impacts on the industry.

"He also acknowledges our appeal for funding and has asked his officials to meet with us to consider it further."

Mrs Wells had written: "There is concern the disruption will coincide with the beginning of the tourism season and the important Easter holiday period - and the impact that this will have on the thousands of Kent SMEs, many of whom lack the resources to manage major external disruption of this scale.”