Transport
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Station Theatre, West Town, Hayling Island
Remains of the old railway bridge linking Hayling Island to the mainland. The present road bridge can be seen to the right.
Hayling Ferry links Portsmouth and Hayling Island. The ferry is busy in summer in good weather, bringing tourists and cyclists to Hayling. In winter, there was a significant reduction of use. The ferry service to and from Portsea Island was subsidised by the local authorities, leaving it under constant threat of closure due to limited resources. The ferry service ceased when the company running the ferry went into administration in March 2015. It was reopened in August 2016 by Baker Trayte Marine Ltd.
During the ferry's closure, the only public connection between Hayling Island and the mainland was the single carriageway road linking Northney to Langstone Havant. In summer, in particular, this road can become very congested, rendering the journey between the bridge and South Hayling (the most populated area) anything from 30 minutes to an hour. A proposed Millennium project to create a new shared pedestrian and cycle bridge was unsuccessful.
A railway to the island was active in the 19th and 20th centuries. It opened on 17 July 1867, coinciding with the local races. Terrier steam locomotives pulled carriages along the 5-mile (8 km) Hayling Billy Line from Havant Station on the mainland to a station which was located at the northern end of Staunton Avenue, passing through Langstone where there was a Halt. The railway was popular with tourists throughout the summer, though it saw little service in winter, and at peak times ran up to 24 services per day. Despite its popularity, the line was marked for closure in the Beeching Report owing to the prohibitive cost of replacing Langstone Bridge, which connected the island to the mainland, estimated at up to £400,000 to repair. Services ended on 3 November 1963, and the bridge was demolished in 1966. The remaining railway buildings are a goods shed, which has now been converted into a theatre run by HIADS, and a station, opposite the Ship Inn over the bridge. A railway gatehouse, located opposite Mill Lane, was burned down on 15 November 2018; no other building is believed to survive.
A tourist attraction, the East Hayling Light Railway, is a 2 ft (610 mm) gauge railway which runs for just over 1 mile (1.6 km) from Beachlands Station to Eastoke Corner with aspirations to extend the route to Ferry Point within the next few years.
The nearest railway station to Hayling Island is Havant, just on to the mainland off Hayling Island. Alternatively, Portsmouth & Southsea is another railway station, used for connections to Bristol Temple Meads and Cardiff.