The case for a huge lorry park to deal with Operation Stack has not been proved, say MPs who have examined the plans.

A report published today by the Transport Select Committee said while the Government was right to seek a solution to the disruption caused by Operation Stack, the decision to build a lorry park was rushed and “left behind some of the usual best practice when spending such large sums of money.”

The inquiry by MPs was triggered after the government responded to the widespread disruption caused by Operation Stack last summer.

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The Chancellor announced that £250million would be allocated to fund a permanent lorry park near junction 11 of the M20, capable of holding around 4000 HGVs - on a site the same size as Disneyland and, if it went ahead, would be the second largest such park in the world.

The cross-party group said that given the scale of the scheme, it required full and careful evaluation and the government needed to demonstrate all possible alternatives had been properly evaluated.

Their report called on the government to demonstrate the necessity of building the lorry park, including:

• Whether alternatives to the lorry park represented better value for money
• Whether the lorry park was “a proportionate and appropriate solution to the scale and frequency of disruption associated with Operation Stack”
• What environmental and social costs the scheme would impose on the local area
• The value of any benefits the park would bring locally and to the UK economy
• The long-term costs of operating, maintaining, renewing and, eventually, decommissioning the lorry park

Louise Ellman MP, Chairman of the Committee said: “We are not saying the government should not press ahead with its proposal, only that it has more work to do to persuade us of the business case for this investment.

“The disruption caused by Operation Stack affects many people in Kent but this is not just a local issue. The routes to Dover and Folkestone are important nationally – they carry more than 80% of the road freight entering or leaving the UK.

“The Government has settled on a lorry park as the best solution but what they are proposing is on a vast scale and could cost up to quarter of a billion pounds.”

She added: “Ministers need to do more in order to justify this spending and it should do more to demonstrate why a lorry park roughly the size of Disneyland in California is better than the alternatives we heard about during our inquiry.”

The report comes after the Highways Agency announced it had appointed Balfour Beattie as its main contractor for the park but had yet to say which site in Stanford was preferred.

A Department for Transport spokesman said: "We are acutely aware of the impact Operation Stack has on residents and businesses.

"It is right that we find a permanent solution and we’re determined to keep Kent moving.

"That is why up to £250m was made available to build a lorry park which could take lorries off the county’s roads in the event of disruption.

"Highways England received more than 1,000 responses to its public consultation on this issue and will announce a decision on the preferred site soon."