A report on the parking area, outside Old and St Andrews Church, was due to go before Angus Council's infrastructure services committee on Tuesday evening.

Since it was installed in September last year, the lay-by has been criticised by a local funeral director, local councillors and Montrose Community Council for being too narrow to be safe and for poor workmanship.

The report looks into widening the parking facility to 4.0 metres, increasing the length of the entrance and exit splays and providing two extra demountable bollards in order to prevent unauthorised vehicular entry. It also looks at lowering the kerb at the footway side of the facility.

Councillor David May, convener of infrastructure services said he would be supporting the report: "Following quite a few complaints, I arranged a site meeting with the head of roads, Jeff Green and Montrose community councillors and this is the report that follows on.

"I thought it was appropriate to have discussions also with the church and local funeral directors and certain changes have now been recommended.

"If you think of what the ceremonies are, it is quite critical that this is done. One could argue that you should always check but in these situations, peoples' minds are not always on the traffic."

Local councillor Mark Salmond, one of the councillors who approved the plans for the new lay-by, had previously described the parking area as "not fit for purpose".

Mr Salmond said: "The original design for this lay-by was agreed unanimously by the infrastructure committee in January 2007 and I am sure that when they agreed to the design, committee members believed that the design they were approving was fit for purpose.

"Once installed in summer 2007, it became clear immediately that the lay-by was not wide enough and had not been designed for the purpose it had been constructed, to allow more dignified and safer funeral car parking for principal cars.

"During all the consultation processes on Montrose Traffic Arrangements carried out by Angus Council and Montrose Community Council, the provision of this lay-by topped the polls of what the Montrose residents wanted to see as improvements for Montrose High St.

"It is therefore very disappointing that a re-design has had to be carried out and if the proposed work is agreed this will mean more inconvenience during the remedial work and extra costs to the Roads Dept.

"This area is outside the Old and St Andrews church in Montrose's outstanding conservation area and the lay-by and pavements deserve to be perfect and fit for the proposed purpose. I will be asking my fellow members of the infrastructure services committee to agree to support the new design and the funding required to implement the design."