Anti-police grafitti on Forfar station slated as 'infantile'
Anti-police graffiti on the side of Forfar’s recently closed police station has been slated as “infantile”.
The former Angus divisional headquarters was closed suddenly in 2024 due to safety concerns over the West High Street building’s condition.
Last year, a permanent new town station opened in William Wallace House at Orchardbank. But the fenced-off West High Street site is becoming an ever greater eyesore, with no indication of its future.
And ‘ACAB’ graffiti has now been daubed on the back of the property and is visible from the Myre car park and public park behind.
Tracey Smith, Scottish Conservative candidate for Angus North and Mearns in May’s Scottish Parliament election, hit out at the vandals, branding their calling card as “thuggish”.
She said: “This is not south central LA or Grand Theft Auto. This is Forfar.
"Thuggish graffiti like this is not welcome, and it doesn’t reflect the appreciation Angus folk have for the police. We want to see more police out and about and we want police stations in the heart of the communities which officers serve.
"It’s a real shame that the West High Street property has deteriorated to the point that frontline policing has had to move to the edge of town.
“Someone maybe thought this was brave but it was just infantile.
“One thing it does do is highlight the challenges of local policing under the SNP in Scotland.
“It is a situation that’s happening everywhere, where rotting structures and overstretched police divisions are trying their best to deal with years of SNP underfunding.”
Before it pulled out of West High Street, a Scottish Conservative FOI found repairs and maintenance on the station totalled more than £700,000 in the previous four years.
The building was badly hit by Storm Frank in 2015, with water pouring into its basement. An estimate of £1.5 million estimate was put on structural repairs.
The Scottish Police Authority is now looking for a firm to survey its entire property estate over the next three years. Avison Young won a contract to develop an estates masterplan for the Glasgow and Dundee regions.