Fife Council has expressed disappointment that they’ve had to delay the planned replacement of Lochore Meadows Country Park's play area. But they’ve reassured visitors of Fife’s most popular free attraction that the playpark will still get an upgrade.

Andy MacLellan, the council’s community projects team manager, explained: “We asked interested companies to tender for the playpark replacement work at the end of 2021.  Over the past few weeks, we’ve reviewed the bids received and sadly we’ve not been able to award the work to any of those companies.

“The market for play equipment is quite uncertain just now, which has driven up the costs of the more specialist pieces we wanted at Lochore.  The construction sector is also feeling pressure, and together with the variability of covid-19 restrictions, bidding contractors have had to build in the financial risks that they have into their tenders.  This has resulted in the tenders we’ve received being higher than expected and means we can't go ahead with the work right now.

“We share the disappointment that people will be feeling at this news, but we’re sure that they’ll understand that we need to make sure we spend wisely too and get the best value for money. We’re fully committed to the playpark replacement and will take a bit of time to review the project before putting it back out to tender, with a new target of early 2023 for completion.”