Moray Council is going back to the drawing board next week to stop Elgin’s streets becoming congested by new housing developments.
Councillors are meeting on Tuesday to discuss spending £100,000 on drawing up a new traffic strategy for the town after the Western Link Road was finally axed last month.
With up to 4,000 new homes planned for Elgin during the next 30 years, Allan Wright said it was essential there was a strategy in place.
The council convener explained that housing firms could help to meet the costs of the work which needed done.
Mr Wright added: “What the developers want is a degree of certainly. They don’t want to be at a stage where they are not paying, or paying a small amount, and then, when they get to phase three, they get clobbered with having to pay for two roundabouts.
“This strategy will address the cumulative effect of the amount of new houses.”
If councillors back the plans for the transport strategy, officers will start with a blank canvas to draw up new solutions. Accident statistics and cycling trends will also be considered in the process.
Mr Wright maintained the plans were not simply a way of redesigning the previous link road proposals.
He stated: “It’s more likely to be a series of smaller developments, like improved roundabouts and widening splays onto the existing A96.
“We have massive developments in Findrassie and south Elgin. In both cases, we have got to have improvements for people to get from the north to the south, and vice versa.”
A report, which was produced ahead of the meeting, argued that the blueprint should identify a role for developer contributions and examine how roads could handle traffic as far into the future as 2030.
Work on the new strategy could begin as soon as councillors back the proposals with a final draft ready in October.
