In January 2019, Midsteeple Quarter launched a fundraising campaign to raise enough money to go to an auction in London on 5th February and purchase two High Street buildings. We had less than 2 weeks to do this, and during this time we had some great media coverage in both local and national press, including The National, Scotland on Sunday and the Daily Mail.

Back in January we were visited by Community Land Scotland to film a case study of the Midsteeple Quarter Project. The organisation was commissioned to create two video case studies about their urban members and they used Midsteeple Quarter as the focus for one of them.

Auction Update: 117-119 High Street did not sell at the Glasgow Auction on March 19, 2019. Bidding started at £100,000. No bids were made and the lot was closed. Our board made the decision to register a bid at a fair price, based on what we knew the buildings to be worth. £100,000 was above that level. We expressed our intention to pay a fair price for the building to the current owners, but are none the wiser about what they plan to do next.

The Midsteeple Quarter Project are remaining upbeat despite failing in our attempt to buy two High Street buildings for the community at an auction in London last week. The fantastic response to our Crowdfunding campaign and the positive support from the town and further afield has taken everyone by surprise.

A Dumfries community group is asking fellow citizens to respond to an emergency request and come together, as a town, and buy two High Street buildings that are set to be traded amongst speculators in an auction. The group is looking to local people to help raise a stake to bid in the auction on behalf of the town, against the property speculators.

n October 2018, we were delighted at Dumfries & Galloway Council’s decision to transfer the former Bakers Oven to community ownership through the Midsteeple Quarter Project. Since then, our Creative Producer, Kevin Reid, has been working hard at creating an exciting programme of activity in The Oven which includes exhibitions, workshop spaces and event – all of which will be open to the public! 

We’ve recently received some great news at the Midsteeple Quarter Project from the Scottish Land Fund (SLF) and are delighted to share the news with you! SLF is the national funding pot that supports communities to buy assets like land and buildings that are underused in their area.

We are delighted at Dumfries & Galloway Council’s decision to transfer the former Bakers Oven building into community ownership through the Midsteeple Quarter Project. It has been a long journey towards this moment after all the hard work the Midsteeple Quarter have put into the project over the last two years, and we are thrilled that the members of the Council saw the potential in our ideas for this building; the first building block of our town centre regeneration project.

A few weeks ago, MSP Colin Smyth raised the Midsteeple Quarter Project as an excellent example of community led fightback to secure the future of Town Centres.

We are absolutely delighted to announce that we will be having a stall at the very first Dumfries Makers Market as part of this year’s Christmas Lights Switch On in Dumfries Town Centre on 2nd December. Dumfries Makers Market is a project by The Guild Dumfries C.I.C which has been working extremely hard to bring their vision of a monthly curated street market festival to life in Dumfries town centre.