A summer of discontent over Traveller encampments in Forfar has escalated after the latest arrival of a group at Forfar Loch Country Park.
Amidst reports that dog walking visitors have been warned to stay away from a group of caravans because of a risk of dogs attacking their pets, locals say they are becoming increasingly frustrated over the “toothlessness” of the authorities to tackle the issue.
The latest encampment of more than half a dozen caravans has moved on to the north side of the country park, near the town’s Lochside leisure centre.
They had been on the south side of the loch, but are now in a more prominent position at the popular beauty spot.
The encampment is close to Forfar’s pitch and putt and crazy-putting courses and one local said today he feared the group would turn visitors away from the town.
“This is right beside the car park people use to stop at to walk round the loch,” said the local businessman.
“Even if people do stop, the bins are overflowing, there are vehicles close to the path leading to the leisure centre and all sorts of other things lying around.
“I am sure that I would not just be allowed to pitch my caravan up there when I fancied, so why should they?”
He said a family member had also been warned off getting too close to the encampment after it arrived there in the past few days.
“They said they would be better to go round the other way because their dogs might go for theirs. How can we have that sort of thing at a country park?”
Angus Council said it was aware of the encampment and “monitoring the situation in line with policies and procedures.”
The Travellers situation has been a hot topic in Forfar since May when a large group moved on to ground owned by a local trust on the east of the town.
On the eve of a planned eviction the encampment of around 30 caravans and associated vehicles then relocated to ground at Orchardbank business park, near the HQ of Angus Council.
They spent a number of weeks there before moving out of Forfar to the disused Glen Coull mill near Tannadice, owned by Angus developer Guild Homes.
Company managing director Mark Guild is now in talks with Police Scotland and the local authority in a bid to find a satisfactory resolution to the problem.
He said he would rather work with the council and the Travellers rather than evicting them out of the old factory site to just move the problem on somewhere else.