David Gilbert, Chair of the CCA has sent the following letter to D&G Council re proposed cycle events through Caerlaverock in 2023:

CLICK LINK HERE TO VIEW LETTER

Below is an excerpt from the meeting minutes 30th November 2022 for context:

Lee Seton (Leisure, Culture & Wellbeing Manager) and Ian Barr (D&G Council Events Officer) were invited to talk about future cycling events running through Caerlaverock next year.

These would be the UCI World Championships, 13 events all held in Scotland.

D&G would be hosting 2 of these, one of which would be the ParaCycling Races and Time Trials to be held over 2 days (9th and 10th August 2023) and is proposed as a route through Caerlaverock.

Lee noted that the route from the Crichton, down the B725 to Glencaple, up Quay Hill, left at the War Memorial and back to the Crichton on the Bankend Road was a change to the previous route in 2022. The gradients and turns on this route mean it is suitable for para-cycling athletes.

This route would leave more access for residents as could enter the area from the southern end of the B725.

Both Lee and Ian spoke of the exposure and possible benefit to D&G and Scotland of hosting these World Championships.

Because of various community and business concerns last time – DG sent a note out to all local businesses and organisations and invited them to let them have their responses before we debated this as a community. There were also notices on noticeboards and websites/Facebook inviting the community to come and discuss at this meeting.

DG Read out the responses from his note to business and organisations. All apart from two were negative and were not supportive of future cycling events.

In general, the community present was not supportive of a future cycling event, raising concerns about access for people with elderly parents, or care access. The farming community will be especially affected having an event at this time of year.

Helen Clark asked if everybody objected, would the event still go ahead. There was not a definitive answer. Ian Barr noted that this was not a council event, and the routes were still being identified by the cycling body.

It was noted by Kelly Green that although her business had to close for a while and work late, the children that were there had a great time watching the event, and opined that we should take a positive approach and the Council should try to work with people here to make sure it works for all.

The general mood was that although D&G might benefit, people here in Caerlaverock were unlikely to, and some will suffer badly because of these proposals.

DG noted that the businesses and organisations here were not supportive, and as an agricultural area the farmers and their contractors would have this as a serious problem. While it might be great to watch it all there are local businesses paying the price. There was no compensation last time, and they have said clearly, they are opposed to such an event in an agricultural area.

Lee says these types of events happen annually around the country and will have been something that will have happened before in this type of area, and will investigate how this is done in other places and what precedents there are, and what have they done to overcome these challenges.

The floor put forward objections regarding the fact that this is a tourist route, and how this would be managed over lack of access for two days.

Lee noted the current proposed planning of the route would not be as severe as the previous closures.

DG asked for votes for and against, but after a lack of show of hands either way, a third option was agreed on – strongly advising D&G Council of the almost universally negative responses received from polled businesses and the clearly negative mood of the attendees in the meeting.

DG informed Lee, Ian and the councillors present that the community, businesses and organisations here needs to be engaged with early and robustly on their significant concerns.

If this does not happen and result in a positive outcome, then the CCA will not support a route through the area which will create problems for those living and working here.

DG will write a letter  to D&G Council stating the case of the majority of objections to the route and reiterate the need for strong and early engagement from the Council on the problems raised.