CCTV installed by Friends of Blairs Loch after spate of vandalism incidents
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VOLUNTEERS improving the area at a local beauty spot are warning that reckless behaviour at the site could lead to serious injury or worse.
Most recently, a team from outdoor activities specialist, Ace Adventures, were recruited to help retrieve a picnic table from the partially-frozen Blairs Loch.
Since 2017, Friends of Blairs Loch have been working to create a special place for recreation and education, extending the footpath network and redeveloping the boat house and adjacent buildings as a field study facility for schools and groups.
Treasurer Brian Higgs is calling for vandals to stop targeting the site and, more importantly, refrain from venturing out onto the ice.
He explained: “We’ve had a spate of incidents of vandalism, culminating in one of the picnic tables being dragged onto the ice. It was around 75m from the shore and it would’ve taken considerable effort to move it so a group must’ve been involved. Ace Adventures helped retrieve it. They are highly experienced, wore dry suits, buoyancy aids and used a raft with safety line to get across the ice. They said it was treacherously slippery and very uneven in thickness.”
Friends of Blairs Loch have received a number of reports of people walking on the ice and of younger visitors riding bikes on it. The volunteers are concerned that either the ice will break under their weight or someone could slip and crack a head or break a limb.
Brian said: “If that happens a full scale emergency services rescue will be required. The frozen loch is incredibly dangerous and people should not be venturing out on to it.”
Picnic tables have been tipped over before during a number of vandalism incidents.
Police were called to the renovated bothy and boathouse on the evening of Tuesday, December 22, following a report of a break-in. The door of the small boat house that the Friends have converted into a timber store was kicked in. Wood was removed and used as a bridge from the shore into the main boat house. The oar storage bracket, secured with a padlock, was broken open and the oars put into the boat. However, the perpetrators could not get the boat unsecured. The Friends removed the boat for temporary safe storage and carried out repairs.
The following day a wooden frame stored outside the wood store was dragged to the main boathouse.
About a week later the Friends received a report that one of the picnic tables had been pushed into the water. It was pulled out and put back in place by the volunteers.
A few days later, one of the volunteers discovered that a plastic box containing a visitor comments book had been ripped off the bench it was fastened to and thrown onto the frozen loch. On inspection of the other hide, the box there had also been broken.
Over the next few days a large number of slates that had been reclaimed from the demolished building were thrown onto the ice.
The final incident occurred on January 23 when the picnic table was pulled far from shore onto the ice.
Friends of Blairs Loch ask anyone with information about any of the incidents to get in touch with them via Facebook or email to fofblairsloch@gmail.com
