RESIDENTS fighting to save a Hampshire ferry service are forming a charitable trust to ensure the transport link doesn’t go under.

As previously reported by the Daily Echo, Hythe ferry is “unlikely” to continue running due to user decline and the maintenance cost of the historic pier and train.

Now commuters and Hythe residents are banding together to form a committee, working group and charitable trust.

Writing on the Hythe Pier Train and Ferry Action Group Facebook page, Peter King said: “Like many others there are lots of personal reasons why the Pier, the Train and the Ferry have a special place in my heart.

"This issue is one that has so many different aspects, the preservation of a piece of important local history, the maintenance of a crucial local transport link serving the whole community and many others, the opportunity to regenerate a strategic gateway to Hythe and the wider New Forest.

"The potential to provide other services in the future.

“Perhaps most importantly here is a chance for this community to demonstrate that we care and by working together we can make a difference.”

Over 6,200 supporters of the service, part of which features in the Guinness Book of Records as being the oldest working pier train in the world, have signed a petition calling for the service to be saved.

White Horse Ferries have been running the service since the 1990s, with a £50,000 yearly subsidy from Hampshire County Council. 

Southampton City Council leader Simon Letts has said Southampton transport chiefs have no intention to subsidise the service, which until recently connected with a free bus linking commuters to the city centre.