Exclusive by political editor Paul Francis

The costs of building a lorry park to cope with Operation Stack could be as much as £75million, it has emerged.

Kent County Council wants to build the lorry park on a 70-acre site off the London-bound stretch of the M20, at Aldington near Ashford.

Under the council's proposals, the park would be capable of holding up to 3,000 lorries, taking them off the motorway when Channel crossings are suspended because of industrial action or bad weather.

The estimated costs of building the lorry park have previously been put at between £35million and £40million.

KCC first suggested the lorry park would cost about £26million - but that figure rose after the council had to rule out using a "grass-crete" surface that would have helped reduce its visible impact.

However, even those estimates did not account for the potential costs of building new slip roads to access the site from the motorway, along with some kind of additional bridge.

The county council says changes needed to access the site could push the overall sum up to £75million.

With councils facing a wide-ranging squeeze on public sector spending, the capital costs could place a question mark over whether the site could be built in the next few years.

However, county road chiefs say the possible funding headache does not mean the scheme should be ditched.

Cllr Nick Chard (Con), KCC cabinet member for highways, said it was vital for the Government to recognise the case for a park as an alternative to Operation Stack and to help with the costs.

He said: "If we come up with a cost-benefit analysis, the Government would fund it. It's about us putting together a cogent case.

"I do accept it's a great deal of money - but Operation Stack is not going to go away and if anything, the problems are going to get worse; we cannot ignore it."

KCC recently announced plans for a high-level summit to consider the impact of Operation Stack on the county.

Cllr Chard said the idea was to find a consensus around what solutions were possible.

"It may be that there is more than one solution. Operation Stack has a huge impact on people’s lives and we haven't yet solved it."