The Helm Centre is regularly described as “community-led”.

Dynamic Dunure’s own letter of March 2025 calls it “community led by Dynamic Dunure”, and its new Action Plan describes Dynamic Dunure as “a representative community organisation”. The Council, for its part, has treated Dynamic Dunure as the route by which the village is heard: the minutes of Dynamic Dunure’s public meeting in November 2022 record the Council’s deputy chief executive pointing out that “the village need to use Dynamic Dunure to take suggestions forward”. It’s worth examining whether that stands up. None of this is a criticism of Dynamic Dunure’s volunteers, who put in a fair amount of their own time.

Who Dynamic Dunure speaks for

Dynamic Dunure is made up largely of representatives of the village’s groups. At the 2022 public meeting, according to the minutes, the chair said that all the village groups were represented in it, which was “especially important when applying for funding”. That gives it a fair claim to speak for those groups, when they’ve talked an issue over and asked their representative to put a view. It gives it no claim to speak for the many folk in Dunure who belong to none of these groups.

Dynamic Dunure is a registered charity, constituted as a SCIO on 22 July 2021 according to the OSCR register. The register lists four purposes: community development through volunteering and learning; Dunure’s heritage and culture; recreational facilities and activities; and environmental protection. None mentions representing residents. That is no criticism. It does mean Dynamic Dunure has not been set up to speak for the village.

The argument that Dynamic Dunure represents “the community” quietly swaps one meaning of community, our local groups, for another, the people who live here. Logicians call this equivocation: the conclusion only follows if the two meanings are treated as the same thing. They’re not the same thing.

A welcome to meetings nobody is told about is a welcome in name only.

The switch is there in the documents. The business plan says the Helm “will be owned by the community, through the recently established Dynamic Dunure”.

It can be done differently. Barr Community SCIO, working with the same council on a similar kind of project, is open to every resident over 16 and has over 120 members in a village a good bit smaller than ours. I looked at Barr, and at Dunure’s own 2019 Community Action Plan, in Closer to Home.

What the village can see

As far as I can find, Dynamic Dunure has made public the minutes of only one meeting: its public meeting of 15 November 2022, which appeared on Facebook. In the nearly four years since, during which Dynamic Dunure has become a formal partner in a heritage project worth well over £1 million, I can find no further minutes.

Notices of some meetings do appear, but on the Community Council’s Facebook page rather than on anything Dynamic Dunure runs itself. The agenda for its 2025 AGM, for example, was posted there on 15 June 2025. It has no item for approving the minutes of the previous meeting.

Meetings open to the public are AGMs, and the most recent one was ‘business only’ – in other words, no opportunity to ask questions.

The Action Plan says Dynamic Dunure will ensure that “all residents feel welcome to attend meetings”. It doesn’t say how anyone is to find out when those meetings are, or what’s on the table. It commits to:

keeping noticeboards updated with “local activities, events, and village information”;
developing Dynamic Dunure’s website into “a fully operational and regularly updated platform”.

Neither mentions meeting dates, agendas or minutes. Dynamic Dunure has no website at present. Asked in 2022 whether it had a Facebook page or website, the minutes record the answer that a village website was being developed, and that Dynamic Dunure wasn’t sure it needed “another Dynamic Dunure Facebook page just yet”. The one website I could find was a free Wix site, undeveloped and still showing much of the template’s placeholder text. That site was taken down in May 2026; an archived copy is here.

Welcoming residents to meetings is a good aim. But it only works if residents can find out when and where they are, and can see what was decided. A welcome to meetings nobody is told about is a welcome in name only. A body that wants to be treated as the voice of the village should let the village hear what it’s saying.

What the village has been asked

Dynamic Dunure has asked residents for their views in several ways that I can find.

The 2022 public meeting. The notice announced a “Public Consultation” meeting “to engage with members of the community on what to recognise as far as village history and heritage goes”. According to the minutes, 21 members of the public attended and the meeting opened with a Council presentation. Residents asked about ownership, funding and access. Asked who would own the heritage centre, the Council’s deputy chief executive replied that Dynamic Dunure and the community would. The minutes record no vote and no conclusion.

The 2024 survey. The Place Standard survey behind the Dunure and Fisherton Community-led Action Plan 2026–2031 was promoted from July 2024 as a chance to “suggest how funding is spent”. It was anonymous, ran online and on paper, and had a deadline of 31 December. It drew 90 responses, 21 of them from primary pupils, and asked about 14 themes of village life. None of them mentioned the Helm. The Helm’s business plan is dated September 2024, in the middle of the survey period, yet neither the flyer nor the letter that I have seen mentions it. By the plan’s own age breakdown, about 62 of the 90 respondents were adults, and only about 16 of those were aged between 19 and 50.

The 2025 letter and event. In March 2025 Dynamic Dunure circulated a letter describing the Helm, saying “we need to know that this is something that would benefit you”, and inviting views by email or at a Saturday afternoon event in the Kennedy Hall on 5 April. That is a real invitation. But I can find no published account of how many people replied, or what they said.

There was also a letter inviting positive comments on 12th October 2025.

The Action Plan built on the survey mentions the Helm in seven of its actions and commits Dynamic Dunure to “progress The Helm” through to delivery. Its action on community transport is “subject to community feedback”; nothing comparable is attached to the Helm in this plan. The Council’s press release of 29 June does say the community will feed in “through consultations and co-creation activities” during the development phase, which runs to September 2027. The question is whether that happens before decisions are made, or after.

Some residents did say that access to facilities is limited, and the plan reports it. But wanting better facilities in general is not a vote for the Helm project in Kennedy Park.

A body that wants to be treated as the voice of the village should let the village hear what it’s saying.

Dunure has done this properly before, before Dynamic Dunure was constituted as a charity in 2021. The 2019 Community Action Plan set out who was asked, how many answered and what they said, including the bits nobody liked. That plan did record support for a community centre in general terms, which is exactly why publishing results matters: they can be checked and weighed. (More in Closer to Home.)

Who can take part

Every consultation meeting I can find has been in the Kennedy Hall, in the evening or on a Saturday afternoon. At the 2022 meeting a resident raised concerns about the gradient of the pedestrian route to the park, and was told that the Anchorage car park would be a more suitable route for engineering disabled access. That is the kind of detail a consultation on a building in the park needs to settle, and to publish. Even a well-run meeting only hears from the people who can get to it, which is why a survey of every household matters.

What would settle it

None of this shows the village is against the Helm. It shows we don’t know. Putting that right isn’t difficult:

a survey of every household that asks about the Helm itself, with the questions, the number of responses and the results published;
consultation before decisions are made, with a way to take part for anyone who can’t get to the hall;
the results of the “five public consultations” mentioned at the Council meeting on 29 October made available to residents, not only to councillors;
Dynamic Dunure publishing its agendas and minutes somewhere residents can find them.

Then we’d all know where we stand, and whatever’s decided would genuinely be Dunure’s decision.

This is part of a series of blogs asking for honest, open and informed debate on the future of Dunure and Fisherton.

Dynamic Dunure is cordially invited to respond to anything in this article. Any response received will be published here in full and unedited. Corrections to any factual error, supported by evidence, will be made promptly and acknowledged.

Home

Tag: Community Action Plan

Does Dynamic Dunure Speak for Dunure?