MP Gordon Henderson has called for the resurrection of a Europe-bound Sheerness ferry service to alleviate Operation Stack chaos.

In a letter to the Transport Secretary, he said an Island sea link to Boulogne would offer a more reliable alternative than the Dover to Calais route.

He said Sheerness and its French counterpart were “non-unionised ports with no history of industrial action”.

A Sheppey sailing base would be “easy to reach from both the M2 and the M20 and lorries could be easily diverted along the A249, which would be better than parking them on the M20,” he said.

To combat the current “Stack” crisis, the MP is being petitioned to back a Facebook campaign calling for the Sheerness to Vlissingen ferry service to be revived.

Sailings to the Dutch port via the Olau Line stopped in 1994.

In response to the petition, Mr Henderson said: “If there’s ever going to be a resurrection of ferry services from Sheerness, it won’t be to Vlissingen.

“While there will be truck drivers that want to go to Holland and Belgium, the vast majority want to go south.”

The latest implementation of Operation Stack, caused by disruption across the Channel, ended yesterday.

It’s been put into use five times in the past month, leading to miles of queues of Dover-bound lorries on the M20.

The knock-on effect has seen traffic at a standstill on the M2 and increased traffic on the A2 through Sittingbourne.

In his missive to Rt Hon Patrick McLaughlin, Mr Henderson also called for a review of road links to the coast.

He said it was due to a “dramatic” rise in the number of accidents between junctions 5 (Sittingbourne) and 6 (Faversham) of the M2.

“There is no apparent reason for the increase”, he said, “except for volume of traffic and the higher number of HGVs” using the motorway.

Mr Henderson said the completion of a Northern Relief Road to the A2 at Bapchild, and the creation of a Sittingbourne southern link to a new junction 5a on the M2, offered a solution.

He said the schemes would “reduce the overall cost of dealing with delays in cross-channel services when they occur”.

“The money saved by not having to use Operation Stack would more than pay for these improvements,” he said.

Kent Police and Crime Commissioner, Ann Barnes, said measures to combat “Stack” had cost the county’s force more than £700,000.

She’s called for reimbursement from the government.