Travelers have been condemned for the “disgusting” mess left after abandoning an illegal Forfar Loch country park site.
Human and animal excrement, sanitary materials, bags of rubbish and empty beer cans were this morning strewn around the area at Forfar Loch where they set up home.
The group has been the subject of bitter condemnation from community leaders and locals over the past couple of weeks, having pitched up firstly on the south side of Forfar Loch before moving to a more prominent location on the north of the popular beauty spot.
Angus Council was in the process of pursuing a legal eviction of the group to move the collection of around a dozen vehicles, including caravans, a motorhome and quad bikes.
This morning there was relief that the Travellers had moved on, but regular users of the country park said they were horrified by the mess which had been left.
The site where the group has been for almost a fortnight is close to a car park popular with visitors and dog walkers, and adjacent to a path leading directly to the busy Lochside leisure centre.
Local David Cowan, 66, said: “I don’t know exactly when they moved, but the mess they have left is disgusting.”
On grass which had been churned up by the Travellers’ vehicles, the material littered around the area included beer can, bags of rubbish, dog food bowls and a lead still attached to a spike in the ground.
Mr Cowan, who walks his own dog daily at the loch, said an area of undergrowth nearby hid other horrors including human waste.
“What you can see on the grass is not nice but it is easily cleaned up. The other stuff in the bushes over there is disgusting and it’s a health hazard.”
Forfar community council chairman Isobel Ross this week called for a multi-agency approach to tackling the Travellers issue after airing fears that the lack of powers available to swiftly deal with illegal encampments was taking the town towards becoming a ‘boulder city’ of the lawless wild west.
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