KENT Police must be given more Government cash to cope with Operation Stack, according to the outgoing chairman of Kent Police Authority.

John Palmer, who will formally stand down as chairman on June 21, said he was dismayed the Government had failed to recognise that Kent was a special case because of Operation Stack and that its costs should not be met solely by Kent council taxpayers.

He was responding to the Kent Messenger Group’s revelation that Kent Police has had to spend £123,000 on staff overtime this year as a result of the implementation of Operation Stack, which has been activated 18 times.

Mr Palmer, who retired as a county councillor in May, said: "We are well aware of the impact the costs make on our budget. It is a huge problem which we have approached the Government about countless times but every time we raise it, it says it won’t do anything about it.

"Ministers say that because it is in Kent, it is our problem and that every force has special case. We have always argued that it is not the Kent council taxpayer who has to pick up the bill."

He admitted that when it was activated, Operation Stack "stretched the force enormously" but denied it meant that the concentration of road traffic officers on the M20 meant motorists elsewhere in the county could break the law with a smaller risk of being caught.

The Kent Messenger Group used the Freedom of Information Act to disclose the mounting costs of police overtime due to the repeated activation of Operation Stack, which sees sections of the M20 closed and used as a lorry park if there are cross-Channel problems, often related to French industrial action.