Just two police officers were on duty to cover Perthshire’s largest town one night last week, it has emerged.
The shortage at Blairgowrie was revealed during a meeting of community councillors despite a Police Scotland policy never to publicly discuss numbers.
Two officers were at the talks on Thursday evening to discuss local issues. Councillor Bob Brawn, who also attended, said they were at that point the only two officers on duty for the local area which covers the 8,000 population town and surrounding villages and countryside as far north as Pitlochry.
The Courier understands there are usually six officers in the area, but that evening other members of the team were off sick, while at least one was drafted to cover the visit of US President Donald Trump.
Mr Brawn said when he moved to the area 15 years ago, there were 46 officers covering the patch.
The Conservative councillor has now written to Scottish Government Justice Secretary Humza Yousaf asking for assistance.
“As a community – indeed, the largest town in Perth and Kinross and growing with a potential of over 1,000 new homes in the next 10 years – we may see less serious offences, but it is petty crime which is the concern of us all,” he said.
“Furthermore, there is concern for the officers themselves. If an officer goes down, the necessary back-up is in Perth, at least some 20 minutes away. These men and women who put themselves at risk deserve better than this.”
Last winter, police increased patrols in Blairgowrie after a spate of vandalism.
But concerns have been raised nationally about the number of frontline officers in local community.
Official figures released in May showed the number of officers in Scotland is at its lowest level for nine years.
Local chief inspector Ian Scott responded to Mr Brawn’s letter, saying officers in the Blairgowrie area were well supported.
“While we do not discuss the number of officers deployed at any one time for operational reasons, the letter only makes reference to locality officers who were able to attend a local community council meeting as part of their duties,” he said.
“Police Scotland is a multi-faceted organisation that pre-plans and dynamically risk assesses its deployment strategy to maximise resources at key times and locations.”
He added: “Local policing remains at the heart of what we do every day, supported by a range of specialist resources.”
A Scottish Government spokesman said: “We are committed to protecting the police resource budget in real terms across every year of this parliament – resulting in a £100 million increase by 2020-21- with police officer numbers remaining significantly higher than those of a decade ago.
“In addition, we are providing a further £31 million of dedicated reform funding this year and have ensured that the service can retain the £25 million previously paid to the UK Treasury in VAT each year.”
