The 500 residents on the last large privately owned estate on the island of Harris have voted overwhelmingly to press ahead with a community buyout.

A feasibility study to purchase the 25,000-acre Bays of Harris Estate using right-to-buy provisions will now be carried out.

The estate covers much of the east coast of Harris from Tarbert to Northton at the south end of the island.

Although there are still smaller private estates in the area, if a community buyout succeeds it would mean the vast bulk of Harris is brought under community ownership.

Alan Ross, clerk to the South Harris Community Council, said: "If the feasibility study was positive and there was continued support we would progress to a postal ballot. There is enthusiasm because they see the benefits the communities elsewhere on Harris have been enjoying since their buyouts.

"We have got to try to stabilise the population. When I used to came here to Finsbay to stay with my grandfather there would be 20 or 30 kids of school age. Today there are four in the whole village."

Harris has suffered from chronic depopulation, more than other islands. In the four decades after the Second World War it lost more than 40% of its population, and the haemorrhage continued between 1981 and 2001, with a 24% decrease to 1984 residents.

Between 2001 and 2009 there have been 329 deaths and 99 births.

The Bays of Harris is owned by the Hitchcock family who bought it for a reported £5000 after the death of Lord Leverhulme, the English industrialist, philanthropist, and politician who founded Lever Brothers with his brother James, which later became part of Unilever.

The Hitchcocks, who live in the south of England, have not commented about the buyout plan.