Harinbrook Properties warned yesterday that it could abandon its plans for Lough Muckno if the local action group continued to oppose them.

"We are trying to develop the park and to promote tourism in the area, so we find this quite frustrating," said Mr Eugene Flannery, one of the Irish-born directors of the London-based company.

`We can take our investment elsewhere. It's no big deal. At the end of the day, Castleblayney is going to suffer."

Mr Flannery denied the action group's assertion that Harinbrook did not have the funds to carry out the proposed scheme. "We have got the finance available and we will develop what we say we will develop. There is no question about that," he declared.

He described the scheme as a "joint development with Monaghan County Council" and said it had been under discussion "for the guts of a year" before any application was submitted. It had also been scaled down to accommodate planning concerns.

Mr Flannery said the Monaghan planning officer, Mr Noel MacCann, had been a party to these discussions and had met Harinbrook's architects numerous times. "If he had such strong reservations about it, why didn't he say so at the time?" he asked.

"Our aims and objectives have been stated very clearly," he said. "There is nothing untoward going on as far as we are concerned. We have dealt with everything absolutely professionally and got our planning permissions in the normal way. "What we're interested in knowing is what are the particular aims and objectives of the Lough Muckno Action Committee, because they've never spelled them out.

"Maybe if we knew what they were, the county council could address their concerns," he added.