The building hoping to help revive Dumfries High Street

A flagship project in community-led efforts to revive a Scottish town’s High Street has been completed.

The £7.3m overhaul of the former Baker’s Oven building in Dumfries has taken just over two years.

It has seen the property converted into a community and enterprise hub as well as seven flats.

The project has been monitored closely by the Scottish government to see if it could be repeated to help regenerate other town centres.

Community benefit society the Midsteeple Quarter has taken over six properties in the town with a view to attracting more people to live, visit and shop in the area.

The overhaul of the “derelict shell” at 139 High Street is its most ambitious project to date.

Main contractors RH Irving have formally handed back the site – now known as The Standard in honour of its former use by the local newspaper – and its first residents have started moving in.

It has been described as the “dawn of a new era” for the town centre.

If it proves successful in Dumfries then the template could be taken and used across Scotland.

Midsteeple Quarter’s interim executive director, Kathryn Hill, said completion of The Standard was a major landmark.

“I would say this is the flagship project because this is the first of the community-owned buildings that’s been fully redeveloped,” she said.

“It was the first one that the Midsteeple Quarter took ownership of – I think it was back in 2018.

“It came to us through community asset transfer from the council.”

She said the project was in response to public concern about the state of the town centre.

“It came about because at the time, all of the buildings in this row were empty,” she said.

“People in the community were pretty fed up with the way it looked and the lack of things happening in the spaces.

“They felt that there should be more things on the High Street and we need to rebound from what’s been before that obviously wasn’t coming back.

“The big retail’s not coming back, so something needed to be done and it was the community that took it upon themselves to take charge of trying to make something happen.”

She said it was a “great feeling” to see the project – which started before Covid – finally completed.

Kathryn said the aim was to help bring the whole area “back to life”.

“A lot of local people don’t come to their High Street any more,” she said.

“We want to create some something that is somewhere where people do want to come and where there is something for them, that brings them here.

“It’s really about the mixture of things that we provide that are not currently being provided in the town centre, especially on the High Street, I think that’s what we’re aiming for.”

The project has been supported by the Scottish government, South of Scotland Enterprise, Dumfries and Galloway Council and the Holywood Trust.

The benefit society also owns four other buildings on the High Street and one on the town’s Bank Street where there is planning permission in place for new flats.

The town known as the Queen of the South sees itself as being at the forefront of community-led regeneration of the town centre.

And if it works in Dumfries there could be other places ready to try to emulate its success.