Glasgow responsible for quarter of all Scotland's public urination crimes

Last year, the city had more unlawful peeing acts than Aberdeen, Edinburgh and Dundee put together.

However, the difference in numbers across the country is startling, with the Conservatives suggesting that it could mean public urinators are “going unpunished”.

Of the 1,222 urination, etc offences recorded by Police Scotland last year, 337 were in Glasgow, slightly more than 27 per cent of the total. In Edinburgh there were 153, in Aberdeen there were 146, while in Dundee there were 23.

The figures suggest a particular problem in the north east, where the Granite City has less than half the population of Glasgow.

The Aberdeen rate works out at 64 per 100,000 people, while in Glasgow it is 57 per 100,000 and 28 per 100,000 in Edinburgh. In Dundee, it is 15 per 100,000.

Orkney, which has the smallest population of Scotland’s 32 local authorities, recorded eight offences.

In Highland, which is, by some considerable distance the largest council in the country, police recorded 34.

Many of those could be linked to a clampdown on so-called “dirty campers” blighting beauty spots around the North Coast 500.

Midlothian, which includes the towns of Dalkeith, Bonnyrigg and Penicuik, was the scene of the fewest pee crimes recorded in Scotland last year, numbering two.

In Scotland, urinating or defecating in such a manner as to cause, or likely to cause annoyance to any other person, is a criminal offence under the Civic Government (Scotland) Act 1982. Anyone caught in the act can be given a £50 fixed penalty notice, though the maximum fine is £500.

Scottish Conservative shadow justice secretary Jamie Greene linked the number of offences to council budget constraints. He said: “It is deeply disappointing so many individuals feel it is appropriate to spoil our communities in this way.

“The SNP have imposed savage cuts to our councils in recent years, which have resulted in the closure of many public conveniences across Scotland.

“That has undoubtedly led to an even greater problem with urination in certain cities.

“Coupled with the SNP’s centralisation of our police resource and a loss of police officers from our streets, it means these offences are increasingly going unpunished.

“The problem of public urination can be tackled, but these figures need to be a wake-up call for SNP ministers to give our police the resources they need, and come up with more innovative solutions to drive the number of urinating incidents down.”

Last month, we revealed that urination crimes in Scotland had nearly quadrupled in the space of a year. The official statistics bulletin revealed a whopping 392 per cent increase in the number of crimes recorded as “urinating, etc” between February 2021 and February 2022.

While the figures didn’t explicitly detail why there had been such a divergence between this year and last, it is likely at least partly because the country was still in lockdown last February, with a stay-at-home order in place, and most non-essential retail and hospitality closed.

At the time, a Scottish Government spokesperson said: “In 2020/21, public order and safety spending in Scotland was £3.1 billion. On a per capita basis, that means spending in Scotland was 11% higher than in England and 7% higher than in Wales.

“Alongside a total budget for policing in 2022/23 of almost £1.4bn, we have delivered on our commitment to real-terms protection of the policing resource budget.

“It’s an investment that supports delivery of the Joint Policing Strategy to meet changing demands and strengthen support for our communities.

“The fact is that despite continued UK Government real-terms cuts to Scotland’s resource budget, we have treated local government very fairly.”
A Police Scotland spokesperson told The Herald on Sunday: “Public urination is a criminal offence which is dealt with appropriately by officers.”