Work is about to begin on “a big, new wall” in Calais, France, as the latest attempt to prevent refugees and migrants jumping aboard trucks heading for the English Channel port, the UK’s immigration minister has confirmed.
British Minister of State for Immigration Robert Goodwill on Tuesday told lawmakers that the 4m-high wall was part of a £17 million (US$22.8 million) package of joint Anglo-French security measures to tighten precautions at the port.
“People are still getting through,” he said.
“We have done the fences. Now we are doing the wall,” he told the British House of Commons Home Affairs Select Committee.
Building on the 1km-long wall along the ferry port’s main approach road, known as the Rocade, is due to start this month.
The £1.9 million wall is to be built in two sections on either side of the road to protect trucks and other vehicles from refugees who have used rocks, shopping carts and even tree trunks to try to stop vehicles before climbing aboard.
It is to be made of smooth concrete in an attempt to make it more difficult to scale, with plants and flowers on one side to reduce its visual impact on the local area. It is due to be completed by the end of the year.
The plan has already attracted criticism from local residents, who have started calling it “the great wall of Calais.”
“This wall is the latest extension to kilometers of fencing and security surveillance already in place. It will just result in people going further to get round it,” said Francois Guennoc of Auberge des Migrants, a French aid group working in Calais. “When you put walls up anywhere in the world, people find ways to go round them. It’s a waste of money. It could make it more dangerous for people, it will push up tariffs for people smugglers and people will end up taking more risks.”
The UK’s Road Haulage Association has said the wall would be a poor use of taxpayers’ money, arguing that security levels need to be increased in the surrounding approach roads to Calais.
“It is imperative that the money to pay for a wall would be much better spent on increasing security along approach roads,” a spokesman said.
However, Goodwill, a former minister of state for transport, said the new wall was part of a package of measures to step up security at the Channel ports.
“We are going to start building this big, new wall as part of the £1.7 million package we are doing with the French. There is still more to do. We have also invested in space for 200 lorries at Calais so that they have somewhere safe to wait,” Goodwill said.
Goodwill, who took over the job of immigration minister on July 16, said he had yet to visit Calais to see for himself the conditions in the refugee camp known as the “Jungle.”
He said he would go as soon as he could, but refused to be pinned down by lawmakers on when exactly that might be.
He defended the government’s record on helping child refugees with links to Britain in the Calais camp, saying they were trying to speed up the process.
However, he conceded that he had only had one lengthy conversation with Alf Dubs, the leading parliamentary campaigner on the issue, since taking over the job.
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