'Spend £20m on stopping illegal parking in Elgin'
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Elgin Community Council is calling for £20million to be spent solving the town’s illegal parking problems.
The group wants the UK Government money to be used so Moray Council can take control of issuing fines.
In addition, it wants more parking attendants to be employed to enforce the rules.
The £20million for Elgin was recently announced by Prime Minister Rishi Sunak after it was chosen as one of 55 communities to be part of a scheme called Long-Term Plan for Towns.
This cash is expected to come in instalments of £2million over the next 10 years.
Speaking at last night's meeting of Elgin Community Council, its chairman Alastair Kennedy named illegal parking as the town's biggest problem at the moment.
He said: "There’s £2million a year coming, and we need to use that to get some wardens in place.
"We’ve been round and round and round the place with this issue.
"And it would be nice to sit here and say the parking problems in Elgin are solved."
At the moment Police Scotland is responsible for handing out fines for illegal parking.
If Moray Council was to take on that responsibility, it would have to go through what's called a de-criminalised parking enforcement process.
That is expected to cost a lump sum of around £400,000 to cover the whole of Moray.
However, there could be an option for the local authority to apply for a smaller area such as Elgin town centre.
Attendants already patrol Moray Council car parks in Elgin and can issue fines for those who have not paid.
Last night's meeting of the community council also heard that Moray Council is commissioning design work to install rise and fall bollards on the west side of the Plainstones.
Traffic problems in the area have been compounded by work being carried out at the Poundland building.
This is expected to be completed in spring next year.
Elgin is the only town within Moray where car park fees are charged.
