Why the hovercraft service from Kent was scrapped

The Princess Margaret hovercraft carried up to 400 passengers and 55 cars between Dover and France

It was the fastest way to get passengers across the English Channel from Kent to France for decades.

Hovercrafts operated at 60mph (96kmph) from Dover and Pegwell Bay, near Ramsgate, from 1968, getting millions of people to France in 35 minutes, considerably quicker than ferries.

But services stopped in 2000, as they struggled to compete with the Channel Tunnel.

Brian Laverick-Smith, who worked on hovercrafts in Kent for 30 years, said: "The noise was thunderous. It was great fun."

He added: "A hovercraft is more complicated to work on than a ship.

"It's an aircraft, so you're strapped in and you're never going where you're pointing.

"The toughest job was being the navigator."

Mr Laverick-Smith said the service was "popular" but "ended because of bottom line economics".

He added: "Crude oil prices quadrupled. We couldn't fly at night because of the noise, and the Channel Tunnel came in.

"We just couldn't compete."

By the time the Kent hovercraft service ended in 2000, it had carried 70 million passengers across the Channel.

At its peak, the Princess Margaret hovercraft carried up to 400 passengers and 55 cars between Dover and France.

It was dismantled and scrapped in 2018.

Brian Flood, from Dover Transport Museum, said: "The hovercraft was something of an aberration.

"From a modern perspective, it looks like an experiment that eventually ran its course.

"Ferries increased in size and frequency and could take much greater loads than the hovercraft ever could."

He added: "With the arrival of the tunnel, its fate was sealed.

"There's a whole generation of people who have never seen a hovercraft in action and it is a real curiosity."