SUPPORTERS from both sides of Galloway’s National Park debate held peaceful demonstrations in Dumfries on Wednesday as councillors arrived for the big meeting.
People turned out in numbers at The Bridge with signs and banners in the hope of lobbying elected members as they headed into an extraordinary meeting to formalise their response to the consultation carried out by NatureScot.
Although the debate between the Galloway National Park Association (GNPA) and No Galloway National Park group (NGNP) has been contentious, both sides were keen to see what the day would bring.
Liz Hitschmann, co-founder of NGNP, said: “We are here today to make our presence felt.
“We [the public] are being asked to consult on something that we don’t know what it is, nobody knows what it is because nothing about it has been decided.”
About 40 people joined the NGNP protest, all objecting for different reasons. Amongst them was 19-year-old student Alasdair Marshall who said he was ‘disappointed’ at the treatment of young people throughout the consultation. He said: “There’s no hard evidence about how many young people actually support this. I have spoken to other young people who were consulted by the National Park Association in 2018 and many of them said it felt like a tick-box exercise or a photo opp.
“I am here to stand up for young people because it’s not often that we actually get our voices heard.
“All the way through the NatureScot consultation there’s not been any young person specific activities at the events, it’s all surveys and the thing is full of jargon. As a young person I don’t understand half of what’s in the survey, you have to go look up a dictionary to know what most of the words mean.”
For others in the no camp their reasons hit closer to home. Maggie Gladstone added: “We are all of different ages, different political beliefs and backgrounds, but my own special reason for being here is because I have family in Aberdeenshire and I have seen in my lifetime the damage to the environment, to the people, to the businesses in the Cairngorms, it hasn’t been a success and we don’t want that to happen in Galloway.”
Meanwhile, the GNPA team were focused on the potential investment the park could bring to the region.
Spokesman Stephen Norris said: “The park is so important for Galloway, and Dumfries as well, we are standing in a gateway town as is Stranraer in the west, Dalmellington, Girvan, Carsphairn and all these places are the kind that need investment.
“There are millions of pounds on the table annually from the Scottish Government, it’s going nowhere else, if we lose this money it’s going back into the Scottish budget, so this money is on the table for the park to become a people’s park for Galloway.”
