Campaigners against a proposed new visitor centre at Lochore Meadows Country Park are to protest ahead of a crunch decision.
Councillors will decide on Tuesday whether to award a £1.77 million contract for the centre and a nearby golf clubhouse and changing pavilion in the face of community opposition.
Placard-waving members of Lochore Meadows Panel are to gather outside Fife House ahead of Fife Council executive committee’s meeting in the hope of persuading members to say no.
They will also call on politicians to ring-fence current funding for the £1m centre and create a new management board with half its members from the community to take forward ambitious new plans for the park, known locally as the Meedies.
Construction of the replacement visitor centre is opposed by some who have criticised its design, size, lack of external funding and the consultation process.
However, council officers have warned in a report to the committee that delays could see costs rise by more than £300,000 including the loss of an £83,000 grant from sportscotland for the clubhouse.
Kevin Payne, of Lochore Meadows Panel, said: “People feel betrayed.
“They have asked us on social media and privately for a protest so that the councillors who get to decide on Tuesday have the opportunity to hear the views of local communities.
“We want to tell the councillors that the Meedies deserves a better visitor centre than a proposal which has been rushed through with no community consultation and no input from external funders.
“The result is a glorified portacabin almost half the size of the current centre which cannot meet the needs of the 500,000 plus people who visit the Meedies every year.”
He claimed that only with proper management could considerable external funding be sourced.
He added: “The officers’ report to the council recommending the new centre is a disgraceful piece of scare-mongering and we have written to every councillor pointing out the errors and evasions.”
Mr Payne also said business as usual was not an option at the Meedies.
He said: “We, the people who live by the Meedies and visit day in, day out should be at the heart of our Meedies.
“If the passion and ambition in local communities which this mismanaged project has unleashed is now harnessed for the park’s future development, the sky’s the limit.”
Fife Coast and Countryside Trust, which led the centre project, is to cease managing the park in March as it believes it is “not best placed” to do so.
Panel members are also to meet council chief executive Steve Grimmond on Monday evening and stage a public meeting in Lochore Miners Institute on January 31 at 7pm.
