Hamble Lifeboat is in jeopardy unless a new base can be found, service chiefs have warned.

Health and safety red tape means the rescue service, one of the busiest in the country, could fold unless it moves to a new home.

The 24-hour all-year-round inshore rescue service, which was formed in 1968 and is manned by volunteers, has to rely on grants and donations to keep it going.

The lifesavers' current base at Hamble foreshore was built in 1968 and the committee was told that it was too small to accommodate a new lifeboat.

Earlier this year the service was given £100,000 by 75-year-old spinster Joan Hurrell towards the cost of a new lifeboat to replace the high-speed St Andrew IV rescue craft which has been in use since 1991.

Miss Hurrell, who worked as a senior technician in a virus research unit in Cambridge, said it had always been her ambition to buy a lifeboat in memory of her late parents.

Hamble Lifeboat has taken delivery of the hull, but efforts to fit out the new craft - which will bear the name John and Violet Hurrell - are being hampered by the cramped conditions of the current base.

Hamble Lifeboat president John Campbell has appealed to civic chiefs to keep the lifesaving service afloat.

He warned that unless new accommodation could be found, health and safety regulations meant that the service might fold.

He said: "It is a very worrying situation. Thirty-odd years ago there were a dozen people in this local area drowned every year. What we are doing is preventing the loss of life."

Councillors were told that Hamble Parish Council had been in discussion with marina operators MDL about relocating the service to Hamble Point and the village authority was hoping that a new base might form part of a redevelopment scheme.

Eastleigh councillors have agreed to investigate ways of helping to fund a replacement boathouse.

Councillor David Airey said: it was "an extremely worthwhile cause to support".