Estates Consultation: Forfar

Results updated 23 Sep 2024

Police in Forfar will be using office space in Angus House, the head office of Angus Council, as a temporary base following a decision earlier this month to vacate the existing station in the town.

Forfar police station on West High Street was closed on 11 September 2024 as a precaution following compliance concerns relating to health and safety.

The police station at West High Street has long term structural issues and suffered significant storm damage in 2023. The building had been subject to regular monitoring to ensure the safety and welfare of police, staff and the public.

As part of the organisation’s ongoing national estates programme, public consultation was launched on 29 July 2024 requesting views on a proposal to relocate officers in the area and dispose of the existing station. The public consultation ended on 26 August 2024. A total of 117 responses were submitted to the consultation.

Respondents mostly agreed with our proposed plan to move from West High Street and were understanding of our reasons.

We also received a number of comments from those with concerns about us moving away from the town centre, which we can completely understand.

Respondents appreciate the visible presence of officers and police vehicles accessing the West High Street building, which they feel helps deters crime and gives a feeling of safety. However, there was an understanding from respondents that the building is in a poor state of repair, with high running costs.

Taking into account the views of the public, the views of officers and staff, our operational requirements, our national estates programme, the health and safety of our officers and staff, plus the current situation with West High Street, we can confirm that we are in discussion with Angus Council about taking space at William Wallace House as our long term and permanent location.

At the time of conducting the consultation we did not envisage exiting West High Street at this point. Angus House will be a suitable location for the local policing team in the interim however William Wallace House would be the best fit for our overall and longer term requirements. It will also enable us to reinstate public counter services for Forfar, which isn’t currently possible at Angus House.

We realise that there has been sudden and fast change, in terms of closing our station at West High Street, however we would like to reassure the community that measures were quickly put in place to ensure local policing services in Forfar remain unaffected. 

We are committed to maintaining a presence at Forfar to service the Angus area and we would like to thank the local community, Angus Council, local partners, our officers and staff for their understanding at this time.

Officers will continue to be on patrol in the Forfar area and we would encourage anyone to approach them with any issues.

For non-emergencies and general enquiries, you can also call 101, and 999 in the event of an emergency.

To read more see our full article on our website: Update on Forfar Police Station - Police Scotland. 

Files:

• Forfar - Consultation Report, 443.5 KB (PDF document)