Next week, members of Strathclyde Partnership for Transport -- which owns and runs the ferry --will discuss shutting the service to save cash.

It is understood the move would save SPT around £430,000 a year.

For more than a decade, SPT has had to subsidise every journey made across the river.

In 1996 the subsidy was 97p per trip but by 2009 that had soared to £2.69 for every passenger.

But while the level of subsidy is increasing year on year, the number of passengers is falling.

The ferries can carry a maximum of 50 people but passenger numbers are rarely more than 12 and can fall as low as three or four per sailing.

Over the past decade the number of passengers has fallen by 41,000 to only 141,361 a year.

Two qualified crew are on the ferries at all times but there will be no job losses if the service is closed down.

A spokesman for SPT said: “Like many other local government agencies, SPT is facing severe financial problems.

“For next year’s budget we have to find savings of £2.5 million. We are looking at every line of our budget including our current subsidies to bus, Subway and ferry services.

“No final decisions have been made nor will be made until SPT’s special budget meeting on the January 22.”

In 2007, a feasibility study was launched into the future of the 200m crossing between Renfrew and Yoker.

It found the service’s two ageing ferries, the Renfrew Rose and Yoker Swan, would have to be replaced within a couple of years.

They had become increasingly costly to maintain and neither complies with the Disability Discrimination Act.

A study for SPT found it would cost £15m to replace the ferries with a pedestrian bridge which would have had operating costs of £130,000 a year.

That was ruled out on cost grounds and instead officials looked at replacing the two vessels at a cost of up to £1m with an annual subsidy of £400,000.

A ferry service between Renfrew on the south bank of the Clyde and Yoker has existed for more than 500 years.

The present ferries have been in regular service since 1984, replacing chain driven vessels.

Councillor Liz Cameron, whose Garscadden/Scotstounhill ward includes the Yoker ferry terminal, said: “The Renfrew Ferry has been a very valuable service for many years but I understand the subsidy is quite large.

“People are having to take difficult decisions but clearly I will be discussing this with my fellow councillors in the area.”

 

Why the ferry is still a useful service

The Renfrew Ferry has operated in its current location for the past 200 years.

The ferries, which were launched in the 16th century, originally operated further upstream on land which is now the site of the Braehead Shopping Centre. It began as a passenger-only service, but after the Second World War it began carrying cars.

The car service was scrapped in the mid-1980s and one of those vessels is now moored at Anderston Quay where it operates as an entertainment venue.

In the 1960s there were ferries at Erskine, Whiteinch, Partick, Govan and Finnieston, but they all stopped running and bridges and tunnels replaced them as shipbuilding on the river declined.

The Renfrew Ferry has survived because it runs at a point where both tunnelling and bridging are difficult. Any bridge built to replace it would need to be tall enough to allow large ships to pass underneath or would have to be able to open for ships to pass.

A 2007 study found that replacing the ferry with a bridge would cost about £15 million.