AGM and Parking Consultation: Kill Two Birds with One Stone

(Note that Cycling Dumfries does not in any way endorse the throwing of stones at birds … just so that’s clear!)

As we’ve announced before – our next meeting will be our AGM – please join us on Tuesday 3rd October at the Bridge (note the new venue) for our annual general meeting. We were going to start at 6pm as usual but it turns out the council are holding a consultation as part of developing their new parking strategy and the Dumfries drop-in session will be on the same day from 3-5pm and from 6-8pm also at The Bridge. So in order to give people a chance to attend both, we won’t start the formal business of the meeting until around 6:15. Hopefully if we’re disciplined we won’t finish up any later than usual.

Parking is a huge issue in Dumfries – poorly enforced parking makes the town harder for everyone (including drivers, especially disabled ones), while having free parking almost everywhere is an incentive for people to drive, which in turn makes for congestion, pollution and, ironically, difficulty parking. There is a perception that we need more parking in town (although we would disagree) which is what is driving the controversial push to pave over the Greensands to expand the car park there.

The true cost of free parking may be losing green spaces like the Greensands to increase capacity.

It is important that a wide range of voices are heard in this consultation, to feed into this important strategy, and we’d urge everyone – whether you agree with us or not – to respond to the council. You can do so by filling in an online survey, attending one of the drop-in sessions (as well as the Dumfries one they are being held right across the region) or there is also an online community conversation planned for 14th November – you can see all the details on the council’s consultation page here.

Meanwhile the AGM is your chance to have your say on how we run Cycling Dumfries – whether you think we’re not doing enough on some issues, or simply not providing enough cake, then come along and let us know. We’ll see you there.