Kent County Cricket Club chair, Carl Openshaw, is leading calls for the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) to review the funding setup for first class counties without a Test playing venue, after the club recorded a loss of nearly £310,000 last year.

First class counties, including Kent, Hampshire, Derbyshire and Worcestershire, are increasingly concerned that they cannot compete with counties with a Test-status venue – such as Yorkshire, Lancashire and Surrey – and are expected to ask for a dividend from the ECB to reduce the deficit.

Kent especially has suffered a turbulent year, returning a loss of £310,000 compared with a small profit of £5,548 for the year ending October 2004.

Openshaw said: "There were two main contributing factors to the results – a seriously adverse outcome from our caterers, whose contract has now been terminated, and an increased investment in cricket which did not yield the hoped for additional return in gate receipts and commercial income."

Representatives of counties with Test status have countered that they incur much higher operating costs through maintaining facilities to Test standards.