More than £20,000 of money which could have been used by community groups in a Moray town has instead been put towards a school project.
Moray Council’s education department requested the money as part of the Lossiemouth High School replacement project to help deliver a new artificial football pitch and library at the site.
Yesterday the authority’s policy and resources committee agreed to allocate money supplied by developers to improve community facilities to the scheme.
However, concerns were raised by Heldon and Laich councillor Ryan Edwards that the move would deprive other groups of accessing the money.
He said: “What bothers me is that there will be no money left in Lossiemouth for groups – there’s no common good fund there and no money will be left sitting from developers.
“There is already talk about reducing swimming pools and libraries and now money is going to be taken away from the people of Lossiemouth to enhance the town itself.”
Requests had already been received by the council from Action Marine Park and Seafest to determine whether they were eligible to receive the money.
The three other Heldon and Laich councillors supported allocating the money to the school complex.
Ward member John Cowe explained that Action Marine Park had already received financial backing and had not yet responded to letters from the council requesting further information about proposals to transfer ownership of the site to them.
He added: “There is a great deal of concern in Lossiemouth about the school and the facilities there – anything we can do to support it and the facilities there is, to me, a good cause.”