Council chiefs are taking legal action to finalise long-awaited plans for leisure facilities at neighbouring north-east towns.
Aberdeenshire Council was last night preparing to make an appeal to the Court of Session which would clear the way for a sport and community centre at Macduff and a larger campus – including all-weather pitch, swimming pool and running track – at Banff.
The multimillion-pound complexes, which were first mooted more than a decade ago, are being built to replace an existing sports centre at Banff’s Canal Park, which is being knocked down to make way for a Tesco supermarket.
A condition of the sale of the common good land, which belongs to the people of Banff and Macduff, was that the existing facilities at the site must be replaced with new ones before building work on the store can go ahead.
A council spokeswoman said an application will soon be made to the Court of Session to change the existing common good order.
The two main schemes at Banff and Macduff were granted planning permission last month following 12 years of talks between the local authority, Tesco and residents’ groups.
Plans for a youth drop-in centre next to Macduff Primary School have also been tabled.
As part of the legal process, all planning bids for leisure facilities associated with the Canal Park project must be current.
The council spokeswoman added: “To this end, the council will be applying to renew the Macduff Drop-In Centre application as this has now lapsed.”
If approved, the facility, which was first proposed in 2004, would be built in Berrymuir Road, next to the town’s primary school and community centre.
It will have a social area, pool room, office and informal cafe, as well as toilets and changing facilities.
The proposal is being considered by local authority planners and a decision is likely in the coming weeks.