Hythe and Dibden parish chiefs are fuming after a proposal to introduce community wardens to the area was turned down.

The scheme had been recommended to New Forest District Council to tackle antisocial behaviour in the parish.

It has been ditched to avoid confusion with a £1m "community safety officer" initiative being launched by Hampshire County Council.

Hythe councillor Malcolm Wade is a member of New Forest District Council's crime and disorder panel, which put forward the warden scheme.

He said: "We spent months carefully planning the provision of locally based community wardens where they would be most needed, only to see the scheme shelved when the Tory controlled county council devised its own scheme with little or no thought to what the district and parish councils were doing.

"The result is a complete shambles."

Although the two schemes were similar, there were also distinct differences.

The county council's eight community safety officers will have powers to issue fixed penalty tickets for minor offences such as fly-tipping, dog fouling and littering.

There is no guarantee that a long-term presence will be maintained after a six-month pilot is launched in December.

The NFDC panel's proposal would have focused either solely on Hythe and Dibden or the two villages along with New Milton.

The wardens would not have had any enforcement powers because it was believed they could prejudice their ability to build up trust in the community.

Hythe and Dibden parish councillors have decided to lobby for the implementation of the scheme.

They are concerned that the county scheme has serious flaws such as officers may not have the necessary degree of local knowledge and that their powers will make them seem more like police officers than community wardens who would work towards building local relationships.

Leader of NFDC, Cllr Mel Kendal, told the Daily Echo that Hythe and Dibden Parish Council turned down an offer by the district council to pay about £50,000 for two community safety officers to be permanently based in their parish.

He said: "They either want us to pay for community wardens as they want it or not at all.

"I think that's a tremendous disservice to the people of Hythe and Dibden. We will now look to make a similar offer to another town."

Cllr Kendal said that NFDC is currently working at forging a partnership with Hampshire County Council on community safety officers.

To add to the confusion, Hampshire Constabulary is also planning to introduce a similar initiative for police community support officers.