An Elgin councillor has encouraged civic-minded residents to form groups aimed at keeping the town presentable.
The local authority has launched a campaign to find out peoples’ views on how best to spend its £100,000 budget for carrying out improvements at council housing developments.
A Moray Council survey conducted last year revealed that a growing number of housing estate tenants were “dissatisfied” with their environment.
The main complaints included the state of roads, paths, play areas, communal patches of grass and dog fouling.
Forres representative, George Alexander, had previously suggested that griping council tenants be given garden tools and told to do their own weeding after complaining about the condition of their estates.
But Elgin City North councillor, Patsy Gowans, said the authority’s dwindling resources could spur on locals to organising their own clean-up projects.
Mrs Gowans believes community groups could readily take advantage of funding grants to purchase the tools required to make unsightly overgrowth in parts of Moray a thing of the past.
She added: “The council has a limited budget, and people know that means they can’t expect certain standards to be maintained.
“But the idea of simply giving unhappy tenants tools and telling them to sort it out themselves isn’t something I agree with.
“There are many organisations and schemes that would be able to pay towards a community-led effort to keep these estates looking good.”
Mrs Gowans singled out the Pinefield housing estate in Elgin as being one in need of improvement.
The consultation is open on the council’s website until the end of January, and the proposed changes to the budget are due to come into effect in 2017-18.
