Creative Interventions Programme — Why?
Across nine communities in Dumfries and Galloway, Moving Stories is working with local groups, creative practitioners and partners to develop place-specific creative interventions that respond to how and why people already move through their towns and landscapes.
These interventions — from sonic walks and storytelling events to signage, film screenings and youth-led biking projects — are shaped by local context. Each one reflects the routes, services and transport networks people already use (and why), while creating visible moments that connect everyday journeys to the wider programme of transport improvements happening across the region.
Rather than communicating behavioural change through information alone, the programme embeds creativity within everyday places — bus stops, cycle routes, town centres and community spaces — helping people recognise familiar patterns of movement and see how joined-up journeys work in practice, while exploring new opportunities as they emerge. These temporary interventions act as invitations: encouraging conversation, reflection and shared understanding around how people get where they need to go.
The approach is rooted in The Stove Network’s Creative Placemaking practice. By working collaboratively with communities, the programme ensures that transport improvements are reflected through lived experience, local identity and shared stories — building awareness, confidence and opportunity for wider participation.
Legacy and Regional Connection
Moving Stories is underpinned by a legacy-focused approach that encourages longer-term thinking beyond the initial creative interventions. Ideas, relationships and projects that emerge through Moving Stories are offered follow-on support through capacity building, skills development and tailored advice around accessibility, partnership working and future resourcing, where this is useful and timely for local partners.
By connecting activity across communities through a shared regional narrative, the creative intervention programme opens up new connections and strengthens existing collaboration between places and supports the gradual development of regional networks. In this way, Moving Stories positions active and sustainable travel infrastructure as a catalyst for ongoing collaboration, wellbeing and community-led change.
