PLANS to relaunch passenger trains in the Waterside have been driven off the rails, the Daily Echo can reveal.

South West Trains has shelved plans to run the service between Totton and Hythe because Whitehall has decided not to go ahead with vital track improvements.

The news will come as a major blow to Waterside commuters who face daily gridlock on the groaning A326. Last year, on average, more than 31,000

cars drove along the beleaguered bypass every weekday.

Community leaders had hoped the reintroduction of the passenger trains - which stopped running in the 60s - would ease traffic misery on the link road to Southampton.

But the scheme will remain in the sidings unless an alternative source of funding can be found.

The shock news was revealed at a meeting of Fawley Parish councillors when Robert Wappet announced SWT wasn't going ahead with the plans.

Cllr Wappet said: "There's a fabulous asset there that's not being used. We need an alternative means of transport. People don't see why they should sit on a bus when it takes as long as a car."

Julian Lewis, MP for New Forest East, promised to take up the matter with newly-appointed transport minister Tony McNulty.

He said: "Residents will remember that it was this particular Labour minister who upheld the inquiry decision not to allow the Dibden Bay container port to be built.

"I shall be urging him to finish the job by encouraging the development of the rail service now that the blight of the container port has been lifted from the Waterside, in order to reduce the already grossly excessive level of traffic on the A326."

Brian Dash, county councillor for Dibden and Hythe, said: "Anyone who knows the Waterside and knows the A326 knows the desperate need for a rail link.

"There needs to be significant modifications to the rail in order to make it a proper transport service. There would need to be significant capital investment.

"But I don't really regard this as the death knell. We will keep pressing."

Marchwood parish councillor Alan Shotter, who acts as a transport consultant, said the problems with the track were the only thing holding the project back.

He said an SWT service which runs 16 times a day from Romsey to Totton would be ideal for the Waterside run because it has to wait for 25 minutes in Totton before making its return journey.

A spokeswoman for SWT said the firm had intended to carry out the improvements but scrapped the plans because its contract was renewed for three years instead of 20.

She said: "Those were part of our plans to upgrade the track there and build a new station at Hythe when we were working towards a 20-year franchise. The Strategic Rail Authority decided to award a shorter franchise."

A spokesman for the Strategic Rail Authority said contracts were shortened for all train-operating companies because it was deemed long contracts could not provide "best value".