by Graham Tutthill

The Port of Dover has been operating as a "global hub" during the airline crisis, extending its traditional role as the gateway to Britain to become the gateway to the world, according to harbour board chief executive Bob Goldfield.

P&O Ferries carried 21,500 foot passengers between Thursday and Tuesday, 10 times the normal number.

LD Lines spokesman Nick Stevens said there had been massive extra demand on the Dover to Boulogne and Ramsgate to Ostend services.

"Generally we have seen an increase of more than 400 per cent in our traffic," he said.

SeaFrance introduced a foot passenger service on a first-come, first-served basis to help cope with the demand, and Norfolkline, which also doesn’t normally take foot passengers on its Dover-Dunkirk service, was running coaches for foot passengers two days this week.

While some Dover hotels and guest houses, particularly those on the main roads, were thought to have benefited from the extra trade, guest house owner Mike McFarnell said not all of them had been full, despite some people being told there was no accommodation available in the town.

A spokesman for Dover District Council said staff at the Visitor Information Centre in Dover have been dealing with around 300 inquiries a day, up about 30 per cent on the same time last year.

Meanwhile, district councillor Roger Walkden said more should have been done to help people.

"There should have been more advice and information at the train station about how to get to the port, as well as supplying buses and more taxis to take them there," said Cllr Walkden, who is the former Dover business support manager.

"There were loads of people coming from the station, just walking across the Folkestone Road without a care for traffic.

"I did think that there was very little if any, advice or information about getting to the port, and certainly no extra buses."

A spokesman for Southeastern trains said they were at least three times busier than normal.

So many people booked hire cars to get to Dover that dozens of them ended up being parked on roads around the town awaiting collection.

Royal Navy ships, including the aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal, have been brought in to help bring Britons home who are stranded by the ban on flights in UK airspace.

The move was announced after a meeting of the UK's emergency committee Cobra on Monday.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown said he had spoken to Spanish premier Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero who had offered, in principle, the use of Spanish airports as a hub to bring people back to Britain.

"We are now looking at transport arrangements that we will support as a government - coach, ferry and train - to get people either from Madrid or another Spanish airport back to Britain," said Mr Brown

A Dunkirk-style rescue mission to bring stranded travellers home from France at the weekend could not help as many people as planned.

A fleet of five 10-man speedboats wanted to help those stuck in Calais get back to the UK by bringing them to Dover.

The operation was instigated by TV presenter Dan Snow, who got the idea after working on a TV programme about the 70 anniversary of the Dunkirk evacuation.

Despite all their best efforts officials in Calais blocked their plans and only allowed them to bring home 25 people before the operation had to stop.

Full story and pictures in this week's Dover Mercury