WITHOUT Hythe's popular ferry service, the future for the Waterside village looks bleak.

Commuters and visitors would be left stranded, forced on to already heavily congested roads to get to Southampton.

Trade would be hard hit, with some businesses forced to close and others seeing their takings drop dramatically as visitors bypass Hythe.

It has been predicted that the historic pier would be left to go to wrack and ruin with no one to fork out thousands of pounds every year to foot its annual repair bills.

All this could become reality as soon as next winter if a planned 740 per cent rate rise goes ahead.

The Daily Echo has answered White Horse Ferries Ltd's cry for a lifeline to stop the already heavily subsidised service from sinking. Already valuation chiefs have pledged to review the rates increase.

Every morning and afternoon throughout the week, throngs of locals pack on to the pier train and ferry to get to work in the city centre.

For 400,000 passengers each year, the pleasant 20-minute journey makes a welcome change from fighting queues of traffic all the way to Southampton.

The journey by road can take around 50 minutes; the route is packed with cars and it gets even worse when road works rear their ugly head.

It is a much less direct route by road and drivers are forced to drive all the way round past Marchwood and Totton to get to the city.

Paul Watters, head of roads and transport policy at the AA Motoring Trust, told the Daily Echo: "It's an enormous dog-leg to get from Hythe to Southampton. The ferry does cut a huge amount of the distance off and it is a much more direct link.

"The A326 is already overloaded, so anyone who is forced on to the only alternative way of travelling by road is not going to be happy.

"We need to use all the resources we have in terms of transport instead of losing any. That would be terrible."

The owners of Magpie Interiors in the High Street and Be-Be's Caf in Pylewell Road have declared that the loss of the ferry would force them to shut up shop for good, as reported in the Daily Echo.

The village's weekly Tuesday market and the regular Farmers' Market attract many people from the other side of the water.

Without the ferry, Hythe Market manager Gary Brown believes it would spell disaster for the market and other traders in the village.

"A big percentage, probably around a quarter, of shoppers come from across the water from Southampton to the market on a Tuesday," he said.

"They come because Hythe is a nice town. There is plenty for them to do after shopping and it is treated as a day out by a lot of people.

"If the ferry was not there, I think it would hit the Hythe economy extremely hard. It would be the death knell for the place."

While businesses would feel the pinch, director of White Horse Ferries Richard Lay believes that the richest part of Hythe's heritage would also be lost.

He predicts a gloomy future for the historic Hythe Pier if his company is forced to abandon the service.

The pier, built in 1880, is one of the longest in the country and its train holds a place in the Guinness Book of Records for being the oldest working pier train in the world.

Mr Lay said the heavily subsidised route already receives £90,000 a year from Hampshire County Council to carry out vital repair work alone.

If White Horse cannot support the route, he believes the grant money towards the maintenance would be withdrawn and the pier would fall into disrepair.

"Inevitably if the service was to be lost, so the natural consequence would be the loss of the pier," he said. "There would be no one to look after it."

Essential work currently being conducted includes re-decking, improving the railway track and rebuilding the pier end.