Exasperated villagers have spoken of their weekend from hell after drivers caught in chaotic 21-hour queues left roads outside their houses gridlocked with holidaymakers forced to use the roadside as a ‘public urinal’.

Tens of thousands of families endured bedlam with children having to brush their teeth at the roadside before sleeping in their vehicles due to delays at passport check booths from Friday morning through to Sunday night.

With a large stretch of the M20 closed to all but EU freight traffic under Operation Brock, local roads on the approach to the Port of Dover and etiler escort the Eurotunnel at Folkestone came to a standstill – particularly the A2.

It left local residents trapped in their own homes, with many families having to cancel their own planned outings because of the traffic woes.

The community of Whitfield, on the outskirts of Dover and close to the A2, today lambasted the chaos and told of how some businesses were unable to open over the weekend. 

Downing Street today insisted that the chaos at Channel ports over the weekend had nothing to do with Brexit as a war of words continues between London and Paris over the passport control carnage that led to the mass disruption.

Marianne Hodges, an 85-year-old mother-of-seven, has lived in Sandwich Road, Whitfield, for 64 years.

She said she has not seen anything like it before and recalled having to inform stranded lorry drivers of when she was planning to leave her home in order to avoid becoming trapped.

The former air hostess added: ‘It was a nightmare, we couldn’t get out of the house.

It was really bad, I had to go out and ask lorries to move, we had to let them know when we were planning on going out.

‘But it was worse down at the docks, that was truly horrendous.’

She continued: ‘We are seriously thinking about moving but we’ve been here so long, it’s a tough thing to do.’

Her husband John, 86, said: ‘The traffic at the port builds up and reverberates back to here.

‘It was disastrous this weekend…the bl**dy French.’

The sentiments were echoed by mother-of-five Debbie Reeves, a 56-year-old cleaner, who had to cancel a picnic with her family.

Her daughter, 37, has a heart problem and is awaiting a transplant.

Debbie had to look after her to ensure she is taking the correct medication.

But she became boxed into her home this weekend and could not reach her daughter – leaving her in a panicked state.

Debbie said: ‘I’ve got a daughter with a heart problem and if she had an issue, I couldn’t get to her and she could have died.

‘No one could get to her, all the roads around here were gridlock.

‘I had to cancel our plans, we had a planned picnic with my family, we couldn’t even walk as it was so dangerous with all the cars and trucks.

There are always accidents on the round about.

‘We tried to get out but there were lorries parked on the drive.’

Debbie lives with her 70-year-old husband Steve, a security guard, and was supposed to meet up with 15 other members of her family for the picnic on Saturday.

She said such events are rare and require a lot of planning, especially due to her daughter’s illness.

The mother continued: ‘We’ve got a big family and it takes a lot of planning.

‘It’s a lot of planning to do stuff like that, a lot of planning and hard work straight out of the window.

‘I hope the rest of the summer goes better.’

She moved to the Kent village 18 months ago, adding: ‘Coming home from work on Friday was a nightmare too, I had to park up and walk for about half an hour to get home.’

Sally Hazlewood, a receptionist for Medivet on the same road, said the veterinary surgery could not open on Friday.

The 61-year-old, who lives in nearby Capel, Deal, added: ‘I left home and got completely stuck in traffic.

It meant clients couldn’t come and collect medication.

‘No staff could get in so we didn’t open. I was driving for two and a half hours, then I turned around and went home, I felt guilty but it was too far to walk.’

When she was finally able to make the journey to her workplace, she was met with a letter of complaint that had been stuck on her door.

Meanwhile, other residents have revealed that lorry drivers abandoned their vehicles to walk into the village for haircuts and shaves after being stuck in the queues for more than a day.

It comes after one passenger, named Joan, told LBC that the hard shoulder of the A2 had become ‘like a urinal’.

Joanna Glykeriou, a 53-year-old hairdresser, said the Shan Barber Shop was filled with new faces who used the delays for a haircut.

She said: ‘The chaos started on Friday, we were very busy and had people abandoning their vehicles and coming in for shaves and haircuts.

‘We didn’t stop all day since we opened our doors at 9am, we just kept going.

They were also popping in for food next door.’

She added: ‘There were quite a few new faces asking what the best way into Dover was.

‘One guy was here on the Friday and was still around on the Saturday. He was stuck for more than a day.’

The situation became so dire around the Eurotunnel at Folkestone on Sunday that members of the coastguard were drafted in to hand out bottled water to stranded holidaymakers.

Jack Cousens, head of roads policy at the AA, said the area had ‘become the hotspot of holiday hell’.

Extra post-Brexit border checks and French authorities’ understaffing of checkpoints in Dover have been blamed for the hold-ups, with just six of 12 passport check booths being operated at the port as the chaos began on Friday.

But a row continues over where fault lies for the delays.

France has today taunted Britain over the delays at Dover and Folkestone and urged the UK to beg Brussels to let them bring back freedom of movement with the EU as holidaymakers were warned to expect queues for the rest of July and August.

Hitting back, the Prime Minister’s official spokesperson said the weekend’s problems were down to a combination of factors ‘including a shortage of French border control staff. 

‘So these are not scenes that we think are necessitated by leaving the European Union. We think we have operational procedures and processes in place that do not need to see these levels of queues.’

Border chiefs on both sides of the Channel were expected to meet today to discuss how to avoid similar queues ahead of the busiest travel weekend of the year from this Friday – with cross-Channel infrastructure on a ‘knife edge’ because travel numbers are back to pre-pandemic levels and more border checks.

Former foreign secretary Jeremy Hunt said today that ‘furious’ France is punishing Britain for Brexit and holds a grudge against Boris Johnson for delivering it.

He suggested the French are being over-officious with stamping the passports of every traveller using ferries from Dover and the Eurotunnel terminal at Folkestone.

François Decoster, vice president of the Haute-de-France region, which includes Calais, said the UK had gone back 30 years because of Brexit and suggested the UK should ask the EU to let them join Schengen – the arrangement that allows free movement of people on the continent.

Britain was never a member of Schengen – but before Brexit the UK was subject to European Union immigration law that allowed no border control, free movement for long-stay travellers and the right to work, study or live in the UK for residents of EU countries.