BENARTY Community Council has called for an inquiry into the way the planning application for the proposed new visitor centre Lochore Meadows Country Park has been handled.

The community council has written to Fife Council chief executive, Steve Grimmond, asking for the inquiry claiming that the community council had not received any notification of the application being lodged in June last year, despite it being stated at a public meeting that council members had been contacted.

The letter said: "The Benarty Community Council is writing to lodge a formal complaint about the handling of the public consultation process for the new visitor centre at Lochore Meadows Country Park.

"Lochore Meadows is such an important asset and historical landmark to the community that any developments need to keep the public informed and seek their opinions. There are so many local people who have considerable passion for the potential contained in this site that it is very disappointing that we have been completely disregarded.

"There is a clear process for public consultation as an integral part of the planning process that has been strictly adhered to by other major developments in the local area such as with the Westfield Site. Given that local community councils were not notified of the planning application re the visitor centre at the Meadows being submitted and no public consultation events were held, we would like to request that Fife Council opens an inquiry into what went wrong with the process on this occasion.

"Furthermore Benarty Community Council objects in the strongest terms to Fife Council's publicly assertion at the meeting held in Lochore Institute on Monday November 14 that named community councillors had been notified of the planning application for the Meadows development in June of this year when in fact it did not happen. The fact that other community councils in the vicinity of the Meadows received no such details only reinforces our concerns in this regard.

"We consider that this claim has led to BCC being misrepresented with the consequent damage to its reputation. To avoid any such instances occurring in future we would request that all planning applications be sent in hard copies posted out as recently happened with the Westfield site."

The current position with the proposed centre is that Fife Council executive committee will decide on the next stage at its meeting on January 24.