It's time to put Colchester on the global map.

Your Gazette is joining the campaign to get Colchester on to the new Monopoly board and even secure top spot for the town - Mayfair.

Parker, makers of the 72-year-old game, are launching Monopoly Here and Now UK in October.

And instead of Mayfair and Park Lane, Parker is leaving it up to the passion the public have for their towns to decide which ones get on the new board.

Colchester is already on the leaderboard with thousands of votes, but we need to keep voting to make sure we stay near the top.

The leaderboard started with the names of the main towns and cities in the country for people to vote for, but the public can also add other towns and villages as a wildcard location.

Colchester was a wildcard entry, added by an anonymous person, and is in 9th place on the leaderboard, with more than 11,200 votes in place of Trafalgar Square. But the leaderboard is constantly changing and we can't rest on our laurels, as other towns and cities fight tooth and nail to ensure their towns don't miss out.

Only 22 places with the most number of votes will feature on the board. The Gazette already features on the Essex Monopoly board, but now's the time for Colchester to show what it's got.

As well as being Britain's oldest recorded town it's also home to the oldest British board game, which was discovered by archaelogists in Stanway, close to the Gosbecks' archaeology site. It is thought to have belonged to a British person who died shortly after the Roman invasion in AD43.

Colchester Tourist Board has mounted a Make Colchester Mayfair campaign. Jonathan Pearsall, of the Colchester Tourist Guides Association, said: "Colchester has 2,000 years of gaming history - it has to be on the new Monopoly board, so keep voting!"

You can vote once a day every day until May 25 but, in a twist, Parker is taking the leaderboard off the website on May 18 so voters have no idea where their towns are placed.

Winning towns will be told soon after the vote has closed but their positions will not be revealed until the new game is launched in October.

Those who want to vote online can do so by visiting monopoly.co.uk