Westlife are releasing a single written by Gary Barlow as they preferred it to one of their own tracks.

The group’s Mark Feehily had penned a song called ‘Beautiful World’, which was due to be the lead single from their forthcoming ‘Greatest Hits’ compilation but at the last minute they ditched the song in favour of one given to them by the Take That star and his ‘Patience’ co-writer John Shanks.

Mark said: “It was literally up until a day ago that we were deciding between ‘Lighthouse’ and ‘Beautiful World’ for the first single but they went with ‘Lighthouse’ in the end.

“I wasn’t too gutted though. Once I write the song I’ve written it. You can’t get too attached and just have to hand it over and forget the fact that you’ve written it.”

The group insist there is no rivalry between themselves and Take That and they think it is “cool” to have Gary write songs for them.

Mark told the Daily Star newspaper: “I love the idea of Gary writing for us and throwing all the rules out the window.”

Nicky Byrne added: “Some people might think Gary would be seen as the competition but we don’t at all. It’s kind of cool he’s written for us.”