Campaigners are stepping up their fight to save a town's £2 million library project as councillors meet to discuss the decision to scrap it.

Lewes Library Friends will lobby members of East Sussex County Council as they arrive to chew over plans to abandon the project at a meeting on Friday.

The new library appears doomed with the council short of money after discovering a £3.7 million black hole in its budget in July.

But protesters have vowed to keep up the pressure until the council's annual capital spending programme is published in February.

The Lewes Library Friends are redoubling efforts on a petition, which has already been signed by 1,000 library users, and are seeking a meeting with the council to discuss ways to help.

Chairwoman Joy Preston said: "We are seeking ways to help financially and have been advised that we have a good chance of obtaining some grant money."

Campaigners will also table several questions to the meeting on Friday stressing the consequences of abandoning the project.

Mrs Preston said: "These will be that the existing library on Albion Street becomes totally inadequate, especially as planning permission is most unlikely to be renewed for the existing temporary extension which will then have to be pulled down.

"Trying to put a quart into a pint pot is an easy comparison. There will be no home for the County Music Library when it has to leave its premises in St Anne's Crescent which has been declared unsafe, and no money for the county council from the sale of the present library.

"The large sums of taxpayers' money already spent on plans for the new project will also have been wasted."

Earlier this month, town MP Norman Baker warned up to £1 million would be washed down the drain if the council pulled out of the project, claiming it had a "moral duty" to go ahead with its original proposals.

A council spokeswoman said no final decision could be taken until February but said £30,000 would remain in the budget as a deposit to buy land for the library as "a gesture of good faith".