CAMPAIGNERS will take to the streets next month to protest at plans to axe three birthing centres.

Objectors will march to show their anger at proposals to close the maternity units at Romsey, Hythe and Lymington.

Southampton University Hospitals NHS Trust wants to shut the facilities and replace them with a single unit elsewhere in the area.

The protest march is due to take place at Lymington on July 8.

Members of the Lymington Birth Centre Support Group will stage a "pram walk" from Lymington Hospital to nearby Woodside Gardens.

Support group secretary Joanne Lunn said the demonstration would provide people with an opportunity to say a resounding "no" to the proposed closure of the town's birthing centre.

She added: "We'll be marching with banners to raise awareness and bring the issue into the public eye.

"The birthrate is rising in this area and more women are wanting to use the centre."

The group has launched a petition in a bid to save the facility and will be collecting the forms in the next few weeks.

Plans to close the birthing units at Romsey, Hythe and Lymington were unveiled last month.

Health chiefs published proposals to replace them with a new unit at Ashurst Hospital, Hythe Hospital or the "temporarily closed" Fenwick Hospital at Lyndhurst.

The announcement came just months after the Romsey facility reopened following an earlier closure that had angered the local community.

Campaigners say the controversial scheme will cut the amount of choice available to women and force them to travel longer distances to give birth.

Romsey mum Laura Perry, who led the previous campaign against closure, said: "People from the Romsey area won't go all the way to Ashurst, which means they'll go to bigger hospitals that are understaffed."

As reported in the Daily Echo, former model, beauty queen and TV game show hostess Maria Rice-Mundy has also joined the campaign.

Maria, of New Milton, described Lymington's birthing centre as a "very calming" environment for babies and added: "To lose that would be a great shame.

"I've been blessed with two lovely babies and having them at Lymington was the icing on the cake."

Health chiefs have vowed to carry out a long period of public consultation before taking any decisions on the future of the birthing centres.