Good Site, Shame About The Neighbours!
Prior to travelling down to Forfar for our last 3 night stay of our August tour of Scotland, as usual I checked the website for directions and other information for our stay. In doing so, I spotted a review that raised concerns about the proximity to some pitches to a public play ground apparently frequented at night by local youths. There were other reviews raising the same issues so I planned to select a pitch away from the area of concern which we partly managed to do as we arrived early afternoon, although we were still closer than we would have liked.
The site is well laid out with good sized pitches and decent facilities which were open with covid measures in place.Only two allowed in the gents facilities at a time and the wrist band access control system worked well. Given the size of the facilities and my experience of the Stonehaven site, I did wonder whether the limit could have been increased to three people at a time, but I appreciate the site will have carried out it's risk assessment. The facilities were clean and worked well.
The site is well placed with a short walk taking you into Forfar town and Both Lidl and Aldi are very near the site which was really convenient. The Loch is accessible through a locked gate and is a lovely walk or run being about 2.5 miles round. There are a number of paths to choose and there is seating areas and some exercise zones as well. For the younger members of the family the fore mentioned play ground is just through the gate and has a good selection of "rides". There is also a skate park nearby.
In the early evening teenagers started to congregate at the playground and each night we were there (Thursday to Saturday) the numbers were quite large and they stayed late. The usual shouting and swearing and music playing disturbed the peace and I would not have wanted to be on any of the pitches backing onto the fence with the play ground just beyond. Apart from the noise I was not aware of any incidents and the teenagers largely kept themselves to themselves. It is however a bit intimidating and I took our dog off site via the main entrance for her last walk of the day. Difficult one for the site to do anything about but discussing hedging and tree planting on the outside of the exposed section of fencing with the council would help. Alternatively knock down the disused leisure centre next to the playground and move the playground further back (one for the future perhaps)!
It does need resolving because this is a good site and location but I'm not sure I would go back because you don't want the risk of this type of hassle on holiday.
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