The Port of Dover is taking legal action against the UK government in a bid to secure funding for post-Brexit passport controls.

The country's biggest ropax freight terminal for EU trade has won a judicial review of what it calls an "irrational" decision by the Cabinet Office in December not to award a grant to help with a £33.5m ($46.5m) project to build more check points, the Financial Times reported.

Dover wants to double its passport checking capacity.

The port had applied for money from the £200m Port Infrastructure Fund. However, applications reached more than £450m and Dover was rejected.

Dover's lawyers accused the government of acting "contrary to the published criteria" of the fund, and behaving "procedurally unfairly".

The state argued ministers had "wide discretion" in deciding which awards to make, however.

Government lawyers said Dover's bid did not meet the full requirements of the fund's criteria.

A High Court judge has now ruled that the port has raised issues that were "clearly arguable" in court. A case will now be scheduled.

There are fears of big disruption to cross-Channel traffic when business picks up following the full lifting of Covid-19 restrictions, pencilled in for 19 July in the UK.

100% checks

French border police have said passengers and truckers will all be checked after Brexit.

Dover pointed to the fact that the UK Border Force has already warned new checks could reduce the "flow rate" through the port's passport lanes to "50 people per hour, per lane".

Before Brexit, the port was handling 10 times this number.

The National Audit Office said in November that post-Brexit checks could result in passenger queues of one to two hours, but this could be much longer at peak periods.

Tim Reardon, the head of EU exit planning at Dover, told the Financial Times that French frontier police had requested extra booths.

He added the UK government must comply due to the terms of the Brexit deal.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson's Downing Street press team said it would not comment on a legal proceeding.

But the press team added that the government was "robustly" contesting the action.