The call comes amid growing uncertainty over the status of Brexit following Prime Minister Theresa May’s decision to postpone a key vote on her proposed deal with the European Union.

Road Haulage Association chief executive Richard Burnett said that a rejection of the withdrawal agreement, without an alternative transitional period, would mean that “the industry responsible for moving the UK economy will stagger towards a cliff edge disaster”.

The additional time given by such a transition period, he said, is vital for new processes and systems to be put in place across the logistics supply chain. “The RHA believes any outcome delivered by Parliament that fails to deliver this is irresponsible,” he added.

Kent County Council has also warned that a no deal Brexit scenario would cause widespread disruption to the county’s roads, and calls for support from Government to mitigate this.

In a Brexit preparedness report, the council forecasts that Kent may need to cope with holding up to 10,000 heavy goods vehicles on a routine basis in the event of a no deal, causing significant knock on congestion on local routes.

“There must be a national freight transport plan which, when necessary, can hold lorries back from coming into Kent in the first place should the need arise,” urged council leader Paul Carter.

This, he said, is needed to help avoid a repeat of summer 2015 when three weeks of disruption to cross Channel links led to frequent implementations of Operation Stack on the M20, at a cost of millions of pounds to the UK economy.

Latest Government planning assumptions indicate that there could be significantly reduced access between Europe and Kent ports at Dover and Folkestone for up to six months in a no deal scenario.

 (Photograph: Highways England)