The Conservative group on Moray council were disappointed this week when councillors refused to back a motion which would have seen community groups given an opportunity to bid for over £400k worth of funding to rejuvenate town centres.
Commenting on the vote is Cllr Tim Eagle, leader of the Conservative Group;
“Last year Moray council used money from the Town centre fund to enable communities, developers and business owners across Moray to make applications to improve town centres. There were various categories including conversion of empty units into living space, transport, public realm and improvements to shop fronts.”
“This year sadly the quantity of funding from the Scottish Government is much less, however still represents over £400k worth of funding into Moray's towns. What was frustrating to see was that the grants had been limited to just two areas, conversion of empty space to living space and altering large vacant retail premises.”
“This change has left communities out in the cold”
“Sadly last year various community projects were not successful but yet they still remained high quality ideas which would have brought real benefits to towns throughout Moray. I fought hard for this to be changed to allow communities the opportunity to bid again for funding.”
“Officers claimed workload stopped them from opening the grant up to everyone”
“I tried to argue that whilst I understood the pressures on officers there were many ways we could work with communities to deliver this funding including utilising existing participatory budgeting routes, sadly the SNP and some independent members disagreed.”
“What I don’t understand is that the SNP go on and on about community empowerment and the huge potential of community engagement yet when there is money in the pot that would allow communities to bring to life their thoughts the SNP don’t look to find ways to allow that to happen”.
“Frankly I think this is a disgrace, even a small part of that £400k could have made some really significant changes to the benefit of local people”.
