Emergency planners in the county say they are prepared for any Brexit eventuality as MPs get set to vote for a second time on the government’s exit deal.

As the Brexit spotlight returns to Westminster, the Kent Resilience Forum, which is drawing together contingency plans for a no-deal has insisted they are as well prepared as they could be.

Among the steps are a permit system for local hauliers to help them avoid having to join queues of lorries on the M20 waiting to cross the channel.

And Kent Police have been granted powers to forcibly direct hauliers on to official diversion routes when Operation Brock is in place.

In a measure of the detailed plans, 1,100 extra road signs have been made to ensure drivers are following the correct routes.

The 100-strong forum represents councils, the police, Highways England and the NHS but has not until today said anything about its arrangements.

Detailed plans have been drawn up to deal with a range of issues including coping with Operation Brock, the up-dated traffic management system that used to be known as Operation Stack.

Fiona Gaffney, who is heading the forum and managing the emergency plans: “We have had to set ourselves a reasonable worst-case scenario so we have had something we can plan against because it is so uncertain; it is completely unprecedented - so we have used experience of previous events at Dover and Eurotunnel to understand what they can do to the road network and how that might impact on communities.

"The difficulties have been the timescale we have been operating in, which have been very short in relation to other events such as the London Olympics.”

On the question of what happens if there is a delay, she said: “We will have to think about what a no-deal might mean or an extension to Article 50; but we can move it up a gear if we want to.”

But she urged people not to be tempted into stockpiling.

“We have spoken to supermarkets and other food suppliers and I don’t think they need to,” she added.

There has been renewed criticism of the plan to use Manston as an emergency lorry park in the event of a no-deal Brexit with Dover MP Charlie Elphicke saying it won't work.