Moray Council comes under fire for lack of football facilities

Elgin City chairman blasts Council as £100k unspent sports grant is withdrawn

Lesser Borough Briggs in Elgin has often been a far from ideal sports facility
Published 1st Apr 2016
Last updated 23rd Oct 2018

Elgin City chairman Graham Tatters has expressed his disgust at Moray Council following the debacle which has seen a £100,000 grant from SportScotland withdrawn.

The money, awarded in 2011, was meant to be exclusively used for developing football facilities in the Elgin area.

However, despite tabling plans for how best to use the funds, Tatters says those funds have now been withdrawn as the local authority couldn't decide on how best to spent the money.

Elgin City had asked for £67,000 to be spent on installing floodlights near their Borough Briggs ground, but Moray Council had appeared unwilling to sanction the move, as they reminded Mr Tatters the money wasn't exclusively for the use of the football club.

Nevertheless, the project, which had received the backing the SFA, was meant as a community facility to be managed by Elgin City who would also look after the upkeep.

Graham Tatters gives the timeline involved in the loss of these valuable sports funds from Moray:-

Moray Council have responded by saying, "Unfortunately no single project we considered matched the funding requirements from the various bodies involved. However, it is clear from the letter we received from Sportscotland that they would be keen to consider a new request from Moray and so we feel that the door remains open for any future project.” However Mr Tatters is enraged that this has happened and there are countless examples of poor (or lacking) facilities across Elgin:-