Small boat crossings halted by gusty conditions despite sunny start to spring

Gusty conditions have seen the number of small boat crossings in the Channel plummet over the past week.

Despite balmy spring weather with sunny skies and temperatures in the high teens Celsius, no migrants arrived in small boats from Europe for the week between 28 March and 3 April.

This is down to the windy conditions between Great Britain and France, according to a Home Office source.

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Images appeared to show people crossing on Friday.

The start of 2025 has seen the highest number of people making small boat crossings at the start of the year since records began in 2018, with almost 6,500 people making the trip - roughly 1,000 more than this time last year.

Sky News weather producer Kirsty McCabe noted that it was "particularly" windy in the Channel on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday this week.

"Both Calais and Cherbourg have reports of mean wind strengths of 15mph to 25mph with gusts to 32mph," she added.

"It's a similar story from Lydd Airport on the Channel coast and Alderney in the Channel Islands."

Wednesday 2 April was the windiest with 35mph gusts.

"However, it must be noted that these locations are all on the coast and winds offshore would have been stronger," she added.

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Close to 30,000 people have made the trip across the Channel since Sir Keir Starmer became prime minister last July.

After taking office, Sir Keir scrapped the Conservatives' Rwanda deportation scheme and has since pursued a strategy of agreeing deals with countries where migrants come from to try and stop movement "upstream".

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The prime minister has also set up a Border Security Command, and started media campaigns in foreign nations to dissuade migrants.

Earlier this week, Foreign Secretary David Lammy visited Serbia to sign a deal that will speed up intelligence sharing on smuggling gangs.

A Home Office spokesperson said: "We all want to end dangerous small boat crossings, which threaten lives and undermine our border security.

"The people-smuggling gangs do not care if the vulnerable people they exploit live or die, as long as they pay and we will stop at nothing to dismantle their business models and bring them to justice.

"That's why this government has put forward a serious, credible plan to finally restore order to our asylum system, including tougher enforcement powers, ramping up returns to their highest levels for more than half a decade and a major crackdown on illegal working to end the false promise of jobs used by gangs to sell spaces on boats."

(c) Sky News 2025: Small boat crossings halted by gusty conditions despite sunny start to spring