Buildings at Strathmartine Hospital, damaged after years of vandalism and fire setting, have been safely demolished because of the risk they posed to the public.
Contractors Muir Smith Evans confirmed that the buildings which were structurally unsound were levelled so as to avoid further damage from vandals and to prevent people entering the site.
The Baldovan site has been beset by fire-raising, and planning permission was recently approved by the Scottish Government for houses to be built on the plot of the former asylum.
The listed building was heavily secured by the contractors, but people “intent” on entering continued to force their way in to the site on a regular basis.
A teenager narrowly avoided prison earlier this month and was sentenced to a community pay-back order after causing tens of thousands of pounds worth of damage at the abandoned hospital.
Aaron Beveridge was given a community payback order including 200 hours’ unpaid work at Forfar Sheriff Court for his actions in the summer of 2013.
Beveridge was 17 when he torched one of the buildings at the site, leading to a demolition bill of £15,000 for the wrecked property.
Police used a sniffer dog to catch him near the disused facility in possession of a balaclava, gloves and a lighter while fire crews extinguished the blaze.
Beveridge, of Teviotdale Avenue in Dundee, admitted an indictment alleging wilful fire-raising at the hospital. After hearing that the accused had been in no trouble since the incident, a sheriff said the lengthy delay in the matter coming before the court may have saved him from a spell behind bars.
The hospital was set ablaze again in April and crews from two fire stations were called. So far no-one has been charged with the incident.
As well as vandalism, a soaring interest in abandoned building exploration has meant that scores of people have accessed the site, bypassing the security measures put in place.
Strathmartine Hospital was built in the 19th century as an asylum and was connected with the orphanage in Baldovan.
It was decommissioned in the 1980’s and shut down for good in 2003.
