STUDENTS joined a chorus of dissent yesterday by protesting outside the Royal Forest of Dean College – with some marching to Coleford.

Tomorrow at 9.45am, it is the turn of librarians to lead a protest against county council cuts outside Coleford's The Main Place.

About 100 teenagers walked out of the Five Acres campus as part of a national day of action, which also saw demonstrations from sixth-formers at schools, including Wyedean.

Many college staff said they supported their cause, not only the prospect of rising tuition fees at universities, but also the axing next year of students' Education Maintenance Allowance. The Government is scrapping EMA applications from January, meaning students' EMAs will run out at the end of summer.

More than half of the college's 900 students aged between 16 and 19 receive up to £30 per week, depending on their parents' income. Many spend them on a Megabus ticket, which costs £15.

Amy Brown, 17, from Cinderford said: "We think it's ridiculous that the Government is expecting us to be able to afford to travel into college for our second year, let alone afford increased tuition fees at university. I wanted to train as a police officer, but I don't know how I can now – I'm not rich enough."

BTEC Public Services student Ross Wyatt, 17, from Lydney, said: "The Government is ruining our future. I won't be able to afford getting into college next year."

Students hope to speak to Mark Harper. The MP is pencilled in to visit the college on December 10.

Learning services manager Denise Taylor said she and most staff were behind the students: "They have been very responsible and mature in their protest and want to minimise any disruption to their studies, as many of them demonstrated during their break. We would encourage them to protest in ways which don't affect their studies – but it's their prerogative if they want to march to Coleford."

Tomorrow morning's Coleford demonstration is timed to coincide with a visit to the Coleford centre by the Forest's MP.

Anne Riley, the trade union Unison's convenor for Gloucestershire libraries, said: "The hardest-hit area by far is the Forest."

Coleford's new library is not earmarked for closure, but Forest librarians are opposing the axe hanging over Cinderford, Mitch- eldean, Newnham and Bream libraries, as well as the mobile library service.

Forest of Dean District Council deputy leader Coun Diana Edwards (Conservative, Newnham) said she is writing to county council leader Coun Mark Hawthorne, urging him to think again about closing Cinderford's library.

Coun Hawthorne has agreed to address a public meeting on Friday December 10 at Cinderford's Miners' Welfare Hall, starting at 7pm.

Coun Edwards said closing Cinderford Library would be "one cut too far".

She said: "We have to be realistic – we don't have any money and the budget cut we are facing is huge. But as far as Cinderford is concerned the county authority needs to look at it again."

Unison's Anne Riley said expecting untrained people to take over jobs on a voluntary basis, as Coun Hawthorne is suggesting, "is like a slap in the face" for librarians.

She added: "Unison is fighting for librarians' jobs and we still haven't been told what these closures will mean in terms of job losses, and with their local libraries closed how will an increasing number of jobless people without computers be able to apply for jobs online? With bus services being cut, many won't be able to get to Coleford or Lydney and there are no internet cafes in the Forest, as far as I'm aware."

One Forest librarian said: "Many children rely on libraries to do their homework.

"Cinderford is the Forest's main reference library, particularly for local history. There is no room in Coleford for the books, they would be moved to Gloucester.

"We all pay the same rates: why should some of us be deprived of these services?"

Mr Harper, due to attend a carers' day event at the Main Place tomorrow from 10am to noon, said: "Across the county some reductions will have to be made due to the appalling state of the public finances inherited from the last government.

"However, against this very difficult background the county council is doing its best to preserve the services it provides.

"I am pleased to confirm that Coleford library will remain one of the main libraries in the county."