Meeting of the Parliament (Hybrid) 22 December 2021
This is the final members’ business debate this year. I hope that we can end the term on a positive, consensual note while doing something that I greatly enjoy: shining a big muckle light on the south-west of Scotland and my hame toon, Dumfries. I thank those members who signed my motion, which enabled the debate to go ahead today.
Presiding Officer, 2022 presents an exciting opportunity, as part of Her Majesty’s platinum jubilee, for toons across the United Kingdom to receive city status. Her Majesty appoints new cities. When I picked up this opportunity with Mark Jardine and the Dumfries People’s Project in June this year, I brought together stakeholders for an initial meeting. They included local elected members, council officials, community councils and organisations, community leaders, the Lord Lieutenant and Deputy Lieutenants of Dumfries, and many others.
From the meeting came the realisation that there existed many preconceptions about what makes a town qualify to be a city. So, before I extol the virtues of Dumfries and oor wider region, I want to do some myth busting. Questions have been asked about the first myth: “Don’t you need to have a cathedral?” The answer is no—Willie Coffey is laughing, because he asked me the same question 10 minutes ago. That is not a requirement for a town to be a city, although we do have an amazing red sandstone church on the Crichton campus, and it is an awfie braw place tae visit.
The second myth is that Dumfries isnae big enough. The answer to that is that there is no population requirement for city status award. Dumfries has a population of 48,229, which is mair than 16 of the cities that already have city status, including Stirling and Perth. Other issues have been raised, such as, “Ye cannae be a city acause there are too many seagulls and too many empty shops.” Sadly, all cities are tackling the same issues of empty shops and vacant, abandoned and derelict buildings. Those matters can be addressed if we aspire to do that, and they are being addressed.