Abbeylands Residents

In the weeks ahead you may be wondering what to ask local politicians.  Here’s some things that you could ask about, in no particular order:-

• Will you support the retention and improvements to residents parking at the Abbeylands end Dunbar High Street?
• What will you do to secure the Abbey Church from falling further into disrepair?
• What measures will you introduce to reduce traffic overall and slow down traffic?
• What measures will you be taking to restrict larger vehicles on the High Street, including regulating unloading times (9:00 til 5:00 only)?
• Would you support the development of a Good Neighbour Scheme for businesses to sign up to to increase harmony between business and residents interests?
• Will you support restrictions on late opening for certain shops and pubs (i.e. after 8:00pm and on Holidays and Sundays)?
• Will you support the establishment of  specimen trees to improve the High Street (as has been successfully done in North Berwick?)
• What measures will you do to improve standards of repairs to the pavement and road surfaces (repair the cobbles rather than let them degrade which seems to be the current policy?)
• Will you support an increase of more visible policing to reduce low-level uncivil or antisocial behaviour: (littering, boy racers, dog mess, ..)
• When will you introduce completely free station parking and additional off street parking for shoppers at the South end of the High Street?
• What measures do you propose to reduce traffic at congestion points (like the Co-op and Post office), and stop illegal parking and dangerous manouvres on the Abbeylands junction?
• Will you introduce extra disabled spaces?
• Will you oppose the new bus stop from being repositioned opposite the South bound one (if this goes ahead it will increase congestion, environmental and noise disturbance to residents?)

Dunbar in Bloom is looking for people to adopt planters in and around the High Street.

There are a number of these at the Abbey Church end of the street. (A couple of very ugly ones too!)

Is there anyone who would wish to adopt one or more than one? Or could we collectively adopt a clutch?

A good planting scheme would be a start (any secret gardeners among you) and some time for occasional tending is obviously necessary.

More info contact the good people at www.dunbarinbloom.org.uk

A few of us met at the Royal Mac on Thursday evening. Many thanks to those that could make it along. Its difficult to get along to evening meetings and many of you did report existing commitments and sent apologies and/or comments. Thanks to you too.

We had a fairly short but constructive and lively initial discussion covering quite a few issues. We dwelt longest on the proposed changes to High Street parking and the potentially negative impacts on residents at the Southern end and the potential for displacing parking problems elsewhere; there were mixed views about new High Street crossings and the uncertainty about the the possible introduction of one way traffic on certain streets. In particular we noted there is a gap between the Council’s strategic objectives and the measures apparently being implemented, not to mention rather inadequate consultation and communication between Council and residents.

We reflected that a unified voice for High Street residents had been hitherto lacking, making consultation more difficult. In this regard we noted the excellent progress made by new Shore and Harbour Neighbourhood Group, formed just over a year ago and the marked improvement in communications. If a group was constituted we’d be able to share experiences and strengthen the voice of town centre residents generally and network better.

However, we felt there wasn’t a sufficient number of us to decide much more than to continue the conversation. We agreed that an agenda for the next meeting might focus on:

• developing some broad aims for the group and the area we should cover;
• to look at and compare some possible models for the group, including what form of constitution we could adopt;
• to identify initial roles and responsibilities and volunteers to keep things moving

In the next few weeks I will draft some proposals and bring these along to the next meeting, which I hope will be in around 3-4 weeks time, though it may be an idea to wait until the East holidays are out of the way.

Please feel free to continue to communicate your thoughts (whether burning issues or how we should go about organising ourselves) publicly on the website or by email if you prefer. Keep the ideas coming.

If you feel you have a little bit of time that you could devote to helping get this off the ground, then great – please get in touch with me. In fact, any help and moral support is good.