Supporters of plans to renovate a dilapidated Cornish harbour have voiced "Groundhog Day" fears over the comments of an influential campaigner who spearheaded the revolt against previous schemes.

A public consultation on the project for Penzance Harbour ended on Monday with a crucial decision on which element to take forward to be made later this week.

However, John Maggs, a member of the town's Seafront Forum consortium, last week revealed to the Western Morning News that two potentially viable alternatives had not been put to the public.

Mr Maggs founded the Friends of Penzance Harbour, a group whose vociferous campaign against the previous £62 million Cornwall Council-led project helped consign it to the dustbin. However, he refused to give his support to any of the three options currently under consideration, adding one had the look of being "designed to fail".

His comments have been seized upon by fellow Seafront Forum member Dick Cliffe, the chairman of Penzance Chamber of Commerce, which had wholeheartedly supported the previous defunct scheme.

Mr Cliffe said it was like "Groundhog Day", a reference to the 1993 film starring Bill Murray in which a man is forced to live the same day over and over again. He described Mr Maggs' comments as "a mischievous and misleading intervention and one that will disappoint many who support the Penzance Seafront Forum, which has the aim of healing community divisions over the harbour".

The current bone of contention surrounds two unpublished alternatives to three proposals put forward by the Penzance Harbour Scheme Management Board (PHSMB) to provide a much-needed upgrade of facilities for the Isles of Scilly ferry link. The two schemes involve Albert Pier, opposite the current landing stage but close to Penzance train and bus station. Costed at £9 million and £11 million – therefore closer to the available £8 million pot – both were problematic but Mr Maggs said they should nonetheless have been presented to the public at a showcase last week.

Mr Cliffe said that they were gambling at "the last chance saloon" over the harbour upgrade and alternatives concerning Albert Pier were "unfundable" due to dredging costs and simply a "non-starter."

Given constraints placed by the Department for Transport, Mr Cliffe said he believed pursuing the Albert Pier option "would be perceived as reckless, unjustifiable and an abdication of (Penzance) town council's responsibility to create a deliverable proposal to sustain a vital service to the Isles of Scilly".

"Recommending an undeliverable Albert Pier option would be seen as playing to the crowd and a snub to the Department for Transport."

Mr Maggs strenuously denied he was a serial protester and said he simply wanted the full range of options, along with their pros and cons, to be published so that the public could see all avenues had been explored.

He said using Albert Pier remained "enormously popular" in Penzance, although personally, he was not propelling any particular option.

The PHSMB will meet tomorrow to decide on which route to recommend to a council meeting on February 23.