New £1.8m Lossiemouth East Beach bridge opens to public

A new bridge linking Lossiemouth to the town’s East Beach has been opened after a three year project.

A campaign for an improved crossing sprung up after the previous 100-year-old structure had to be closed due to safety fears, impacting on the town’s visitor economy.

This morning hundreds of people lined up to beat a path across the town’s brand new crossing.

The state-of-the-art structure took three years to build and cost £1.8 million.

The Scottish Government’s Cabinet Secretary for Rural Affairs, Mairi Gougeon MSP cut the ribbon. She said “The local people have just been cut off from a beach that they have always had access to and it is such a beautiful area so that’s why we could see the critical importance of that infrastructure.”

“We know that there has been a massive impact on the local economy, with around seventy per cent of businesses seeing a bad effect on their trade – so it was easy to see why it needed investment.”

The previous crossing to the East Beach was an iconic structure more than 100 years old.

It had to be suddenly closed off three years ago due to safety concerns.

A community campaign for a new bridge was bolstered by Scottish Government funding – and locals say it will be a huge boost to the area.

Rab Forbes from the Lossiemouth Community Development Trust, which helped fundraise and lobby for the bridge, said “It is a big thing for the town.”

“It’s not just the financial, but the social aspects of it; people getting on to the beach – they can leave their troubles on the other side of the bridge.”