Villagers hope to restore a local landmark to its former glory after Moray Council agreed to hand the building over to them.
Councillors backed a community asset transfer on the century-old Fochabers Institute yesterday.
Responsibility for maintaining the property, which has an estimated worth of £110,000, will now fall to the Fochabers Village Association Limited, which was granted an extra £150,000 to finance basic repairs.
Forres councillor Anne Skene, backed by council leader Stewart Cree, suggested members approve the transfer request, but withold the money necessary to refurbish the venue.
However, opposition councillors outvoted the administration by 13 votes to 11 to ensure the building’s future.
Chairman of the village association, Gordon Christie, said the group would not have been able to take the project on if councillors had refused to help fund badly-needed repairs.
He said: “The building requires a lot of work, and the £150,000 is to fund basic repairs before we appeal to other bodies for help in financing further renovations, which we think will amount to £700,000.
“If Moray Council hadn’t awarded that money we couldn’t have gone forward, there wouldn’t have been any point in awarding the community asset transfer and we would have been forced to give up on the Institute.
“This is the start of a long process for us, and we’re delighted at the council’s decision.”
Fochabers and Lhanbryde councillor Margo Howe spearheaded the move to grant the group’s request in full.
She said: “A phenomenal amount of work has been undertaken by volunteers in Fochabers to get to this position, and they are fully committed to seeing this through.
“This was a council owned building and after this one-off grant to make it wind and watertight, it will now be in the community’s hands to grow its usage.”
Council leader Stewart Cree said: “I found no difficulty in agreeing to transfer Fochabers Institute to the local community.
“However, as council leader, I have a wider duty to protect and maintain council services across the whole of Moray.
“It is inevitable that the decision to provide an additional grant of £150,000 will add to the pressures on other services, such as education and social care, and these are pressures that we have to deal with in the immediate future.”