Holidaymakers caught up in the dramatic collapse of a hotel wall have described the accommodation as "a dump" and say they just want to go home.

Coach parties were arriving at the Grand Burstin in Folkestone harbour yesterday evening when a large slab of masonry came away from the building and crashed into the street.

The clear-up continued this morning when debris was still strewn in the street around the Just Go! Holidays coach which bore the brunt of the fall. The road outside the hotel eventually reopened at about 5pm.

Two people, understood to be the bus driver and a holidaymaker, sustained minor injuries in the accident.

This morning, a local ward councillor said she believed it was lucky that no one was killed by the falling debris.

Tourists Joy Pugsley and her husband Graham, from Clevedon in Somerset, were arriving in a coach behind the one which was hit.

She said: "The first coach arrived - people were getting their suitcases out of the coach. And, of course, then all the debris came down.

"So one lady and the driver were taken to hospital. But I was talking to another lady where all the plaster had gone down on the back of her head, so she had a headache all evening.

"When our coach arrived they wouldn't let us get our own suitcases. We had to get in quick in case any more came down.

"But when we got inside there were about four coach-loads of us all in the ballroom. Well, we were like refugees - absolute dump.

"Last night I was laid awake thinking, 'I wonder where the train station is, is there any chance that we can get back home?'

"Everybody is the same, this lady last night I was speaking to, she said 'I just want to go home'."

Cllr Mary Lawes, who represents the harbour ward on Folkestone Town Council, hopes the owner of the hotel - Britannia Hotels - will now invest in more effective up-keep of the building.

"Somebody could have been killed last night," she said.

"That amount coming down straight down, somebody could have been killed.

"The maintenance seriously needs to improve. It needs to get its act together for maintenance, because they don't maintain it on the outside.

"The buildings are in a bad way."

Katy Whittingham, from East Sussex, told KentOnline she ended up sleeping in her van last night after being told there was no access to the hotel.

She said: "We saw the road was a blocked by the police and they said we weren't allowed to enter the hotel.

"They said 'oh there's another entrance there'. I looked all around the back, I could not see an entrance.

"There was no one from the hotel to escort us and so I had to stay in my van for the night."

An ambulance service spokesman: "Crews attended the scene following reports shortly before 4.15pm yesterday that two people, a man and a woman, had been injured by falling rendering.

"The two patients were assessed and treated, for injuries including head injuries, before being taken to William Harvey Hospital in Ashford. They were both conscious at the scene."