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Richard Lochhead

Moray SNP News

LOCHHEAD ASKS “CAN WE HAVE ELGIN’S VERSION OF THE KELPIES?”

25/02/2015

Moray’s MSP, Richard Lochhead, is keen to see street furniture or destination art introduced to Elgin, and with the public design charrette being launched on Monday 2 March, is encouraging the public to get creative in their contributions to the consultation.

As part of the Scottish Government’s Town Centre Action Plan, The Moray Council has appointed a consultant team to facilitate a public design charrette for Central Elgin, which is an intensive consultation engaging local people in the design of the community, with the aim of involving local residents, businesses, and stakeholders in planning the future of the town centre. 

The Central Elgin Regeneration charrette will launch on Monday, with planning and design workshops being held in St Giles Church over a four day period, finishing on 5 March.  Local MSP Richard Lochhead is encouraging all members of the public who have in interest in the long term vision of Elgin’s town centre to take part in the consultation, to get creative and to think outside the box in terms of what Elgin should look like in the future.

Mr Lochhead is keen for the idea of street furniture or destination art, which could be a potential landmark that could boost the areas image and attract visitors, to be explored.  Mr Lochhead will be attending the launch of the charrette on Monday afternoon and is interested in gathering public opinion on his proposal.

Richard Lochhead said:

“My view is that Elgin and Moray should think big and that we need to be ambitious.  There are no shortage of inspirations and lessons to learn from elsewhere in Scotland, Europe and the world.

“Imagine what it would do for our image, pride, and economy if we had our own version of the Kelpies.  Something spectacular that people from all over will want to visit and see for themselves.

“All we have to do to make this happen is focus our community’s creative minds. Elgin and Moray has plenty of heritage, culture and history to inspire ideas and visions.   

“The launch of the charrette is a fantastic opportunity for local people to play a role in determining how the centre of Elgin will look in the future, and I’m really enthusiastic about encouraging the public to be creative. 

“There should be no limit on our ambition for Elgin and you only have to look at the success of destination art projects elsewhere, to see how being imaginative can really boost an area’s image.  Moray already has a fantastic tourism sector and the idea of introducing dynamic and creative art projects could be an exciting addition, making even more folk want to visit Elgin.

“I will be bringing together community leaders in due course to explore this idea but in the meantime I wish the charrette every success and hope this can feature in these discussions as well.”  

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