Parents have been left dismayed by fresh delays to a new secondary school building project.
Work on a replacement Elgin High was scheduled to start eight weeks ago, but councillors stalled the scheme amid fears over rising costs.
And the Scottish Government stunned the local authority earlier this week with the news that construction could now be held up for as long as six-months due to a change in European accounting legislation.
One councillor said last night that he now fears the cost of the £28.2million campus will be inflated due to firms being unable to work to current estimates.
And Elgin High School parent council secretary, Mary Dow, said: “The recent news concerning further delays has been met with disappointment and frustration.
“We believe Moray Council are doing everything in their power to resolve the issue and the parent council remains patient and optimistic.”
The project is being held up because the financing of other major capital schemes is being examined by the Office of National Statistics as part of the switch to a new accounting system, known as ESA10.
Elgin South councillor John Divers said:
“What that, in turn, does is put everything on hold.
“Then, the prices will increase and although we have an agreed price now, which is to be signed off on June 24, in six months, firms may not be able to complete the work at prices they have agreed now six months down the line.
“We are just tied up with bureaucrats at the moment who are putting on hold something which has been identified for years.”
He added: “For someone like me, who has been fighting for this for years and years, I am pulling out what little hair I have left.”
A Scottish Government spokeswoman said last night that the Scottish Futures Trust funding was protected, but the “extremely complicated” European accounting legislation, ESA10, was unavoidable.
She said: “The issue is the change in the European rules that govern our wider non-profit distributing programme.
“The Elgin High School project and the funding is ready to go. It’s just the regulations have changed, so we have to go through the ONS and the HM Treasury.
“The change is affecting quite a few schools across the country, but we are doing our upmost to ensure that delay is kept to a minimum and projects can move to financial close as soon as possible.”
The new 800-pupil school will replace the existing building, which opened in 1978. It will offer a stand-alone sports centre, a floodlit all-weather pitch and an athletics track.