Jeremy Clarkson became stuck for hours at a “gigantic” Kent lorry park while waiting for paperwork to be signed.
The TV presenter stopped at Sevington Inland Border Facility in Ashford on his way to the Netherlands to film Clarkson’s Farm, his hit Prime Video series.
He said he and his crew, including farm manager Kaleb Cooper, were forced to wait “for someone in a cabin to stamp our form” as they had to check filming equipment out of the UK.
The multimillion-pound facility next to Junction 10a of the M20 was built in 2020 in order for checks to be carried out on vehicles transporting particular goods in and out of the UK following Brexit.
But Clarkson said “nothing was happening” during his visit to the government-run site, which has space for 1,700 lorries.
The 64-year-old was waiting for a carnet to be checked – a customs form which listed every item the film crew was carrying.
Writing in his column in The Sunday Times, Clarkson said he was heading to the Eurotunnel terminal in Cheriton when he stopped in Ashford.
“Before we reached the tunnel entrance we had to leave the motorway and park up in a gigantic lorry park full of trucks from every conceivable European country,” he said.
“I even met a driver there from Belarus. And got on with him so well that he gave me a hat.
“More has been spent in this place on high-visibility jackets than the NHS spent on PPE during Covid.
“And what was happening? Nothing, as far as I could tell. No lorries were being opened and checked. No dogs were sniffing tyres.
“We were simply waiting for someone in a cabin to stamp our form. And God did we wait. For two bloody hours.”
Clarkson said he then had to go through a similar process to check in the crew’s equipment after crossing the Channel.
“We got off the train and entered another gigantic lorry park, behind all the artics that had got off the earlier train, and the one before that,” the former Top Gear host added.
“And when we reached the booth, the man explained that we’d been in the wrong queue and must follow the orange line to another lorry park a mile away.
“I have crossed many tricky borders over the years and the paperwork always takes time. Iraq to Turkey took a moment, that’s for sure. And Rwanda into Tanzania was challenging as well.
“But nothing has ever taken as long as it took us to get from post-Brexit England into France.”
In a statement, the government said the 230-acre Sevington site is the largest and busiest inland border facility in the UK, processing about 2,000 vehicles every day.
A spokesman for HM Revenue and Customs said waiting times “can vary considerably depending on the movement type”, with average times ranging between 80 to 90 minutes.
The government is now seeking full planning permission for the facility, which currently has a temporary permit running until December.
Clarkson’s complaints about the site are not the first time he has taken aim at Ashford.
In 2008, he slammed the town’s controversial Shared Space traffic scheme, and then branded speed humps in Ulley Road and The Street in Kennington “stupid” in 2014.
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