Locals and green activists are unconvinced by government assurances that 27 acres of farmland near Ashford will not be used as a lorry park.
On Friday the Department for Transport contacted Ashford council to say that it had bought the 1.2m sq ft Mojo site on the outskirts of the town.
Today work will start on site to transform the fields into a Brexit customs clearance centre to process lorries coming from the EU into Dover from January.
On Sunday, Michael Gove denied it amounted to a vast lorry park, although critics have pointed out that, with a minimum of 11,500 goods vehicles entering the park each day, the distinction was mere “semantics”.
