The leader of Hampshire County Council (HCC) says he is hopeful funds can be found to support a youth service threatened with crippling budget cuts.

The authority must find almost £100 million in savings from its budget and one of its proposed cuts was an 80 per cent reduction of its grant to Youth in Romsey.

At Monday’s cabinet meeting it was agreed that an extra £1 million be made available to Children’s Services to help them through the next financial year 2015-16.

Leader Roy Perry commented: “I am confident the good work of Youth in Romsey (YiR) means they will get the funding they need for next year. HCC has a good track record of supporting Youth in Romsey and it was only because of the need to identify economies of £98 million or 14 per cent for all Departments that officers flagged up the possibility of reducing expenditure on youth groups and making that work more targeted at outreach work.”

Youth in Romsey was launched in 1997 by the town’s churches and supports 200 youngsters aged 11 to 25 every month holding activities and helping with issues relating to education, employment, finances and sexual and mental health.

The charity, run mostly by volunteers, also visits schools across the area and runs its weekly Allsorts youth club for disabled youngsters.

Ironically the proposals to cut YiR’s funding came just months after HCC and Test Valley Borough Council had agreed to fund jointly a new £364,000 centre for the service at Romsey Sports Centre.

It was feared that YiR would have a brand new centre which they would only be able to run one day a week.

Mr Perry said: “It is important we use the time gained by this extra money from HCC for the next financial year to establish longer term support.”

He said he would be meeting with the Vicar of Romsey Rev Tim Sledge and other church leaders in the New Year to discuss the future of YiR.

Mr Perry also repeated his plea for Romsey Town Council to provide funding for YiR “Other town councils across Hampshire make supporting youth activities one of their key priorities. I hope Romsey Town Council will drop their opposition.”

Mr Perry has cited Ringwood and Totton as examples of town councils which support youth services in their areas but Romsey town councillors have said this is an unfair comparison as those councils have much larger budgets.