THE man chairing a new Forest of Dean tourism task force is calling for a massive injection of government cash – and wants everyone to add the line "Royal Forest of Dean" when writing their addresses.

Ray Wright, proprietor of major attraction Clearwell Caves, is spearheading the call for a vigorous promotion drive to counter the damage done by foot and mouth restrictions.

"One of the main things we are after is ideas to promote the Forest, and there are dozens of good ideas out there," he said.

And he added that the lowest funding figure to make an effective impact would be in the region of £100,000, and ideally as much as £250,000.

"This is a small amount compared with the vast figures being wasted though inefficiency in the foot and mouth campaign," he said.

"We have stopped using Forest of Dean in our letters and that means we are missing out on a chance to promote the area, so to start the drive we would like everyone to add Royal Forest of Dean to their address – it will be important to add the postcode too.

"But we are calling for other ideas to help us get tourism back on its feet, things like food festivals and so on, all low-cost high value efforts.

"Of course many of these things are in existence already but it will be our task to pull it all together."

Mr Wright said his own business had taken a significant dive at the start of the epidemic, with gates down as much as 75 per cent. However things improved during the first week of the Easter school holidays with 50 per cent of business back, and narrowed to a 25 per cent loss over the holiday weekend – though now visits had fallen to almost nothing.

Also on the encouraging side, visitors at Easter had come from across the country, including the Isle of Wight and Birmingham, with "a fair number" of local people.

Anyone wanting more details of the task force can contact Mr Wright on 01594 832535.