DON'T leave us at the back of the £373,000 regeneration queue say Newent' s councillors.

They fear their town will lose out to the rest of the Forest when the funding becomes available.

The cash will go towards getting more visitors into the towns by making them more welcoming, more attractive and easier to navigate.

But town councillors said previous attempts to secure regeneration funding had failed because Newent is seen as "better off" than Cinderford, Coleford and Lydney.

They spoke out at a town council meeting on Monday after the new Forest Welcome Programme was outlined by district council regeneration manager Wendy Jackson.

"The aim of the programme is a mixture of increasing footfall in the Forest towns, improving the attractiveness of shops and services and helping them to market themselves better," she said.

"Rather than have the same blanket project for all the towns we want each to tell us exactly what they want."

Councillor Roger Beard said: "So much effort and so much time went into the last regeneration project but Newent hardly got anything.

"There has to be some sort of criteria for the allocation of funds because we are sometimes thought of as being outside the Forest.

"It sometimes feels that the people in Coleford who are making the decisions are doing whatever's best for them."

Barry Wellington agreed, saying: "Traditionally Newent has been seen as one of the better off Forest towns and if this is decided on a points basis we'll end up at the back of the queue.

"Can you assure us that if we put the effort in that we'll get a fair shake?"

John McLoughlin from the Market Towns Initiative said the allocation of funds for the projects would be fair.

"All the projects will be considered on their own merit," he said.

"The steering group will be making the decisions which is why it is so important for you to elect a representative to take part in that."

The application for funding for the project will be submitted in July, once formal support has been gathered from each of the town's councils.

A council representative will be nominated from each town to sit on the project's Steering Group, which will own and run the Forest Welcome Programme. Councillors voted to support the initiative.