A DESERTED Hampshire RAF base could soon be brought back to life - creating hundreds of new jobs.

When the US military withdrew from RAF Hythe in September last year 200 jobs were lost.

Now community leaders, former employees and businessmen have joined forces and want to see the site up and running again.

Several large unnamed businesses have expressed an interest in using the base's specialist facilities.

Before this can happen, however, the group is pressuring the South East England Development Agency (SEEDA) to buy the 11-acre shipyard from the Ministry of Defence to rent it out to companies.

Specialist facilities at the base enable a number of boats to be brought out of the water at the same time for service and repairs. They were previously used to maintain US military boats.

Peter Cusdin, development projects director for SEEDA, said: "SEEDA is investigating the various options for bringing the site back into use for the benefit of marine-related uses.

"The process is under way, however at this stage no formal decision has been taken by SEEDA to purchase the site. We expect to be in a position to make a decision in early April."