A Scottish pharmacy is open again as normal following a suspected arson attack on its premises.
Police Scotland told C+D it was called following a report of a fire at the premises, and the fire is “being treated as wilful” and “enquiries are ongoing”.
FirstPoint Pharmacy in Bellshill, a town southeast of Glasgow, had released a statement yesterday (April 23) saying it had been “subject to an arson attack last night”.
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The pharmacy’s accuracy checking technician Ting Tang told C+D similar attacks had happened on other buildings on the street.
“We just carried on as normal,” he said. “Thankfully no patients or staff were hurt.”
Scottish Fire and Rescue Service told C+D it was alerted to “reports of a commercial property on fire on Main Street in Bellshill” on April 22 at 8:50pm.
Read more: Suspected arson and electrical fire: Two pharmacies hit by blaze on same day
“Operations Control mobilised two fire appliances to the area,” it said. “Firefighters extinguished a small quantity of rubbish to the back of the commercial premises.
“There were no casualties, and crews left the area after ensuring it was safe.”
Stock and roof damage
Tang said the pharmacy was closed when the fire happened. He suspects the fire was set off by young people engaging in anti-social behaviour.
“There was little damage within the pharmacy, but we had to do a lot of cleaning the shelves,” he said.
“We had to get rid of some stock as well, as it had some ash in it. We can still smell it, which is unfortunate, but we hope it’ll pass.”
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Tang estimated around £200 worth of stock was damaged from the fire and confirmed some of the roof needs repairing.
“There’s a bit of the roof that had to come off because the fire damaged a little bit of that. So, we had to tear a bit of the roof to stop the spread. We’re currently undergoing getting someone to replace it.”
In the pharmacy’s statement it said an outside shed was damaged by the fire, but Tang said this isn’t used much by the pharmacy.
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He said the pharmacy has been “carrying on as normal” and it opened the next day following the fire.
“Half the staff members did the cleaning and fixing part, and the other half was managing the community services,” Tang said.
“We still can do what we’re doing here which we’re really grateful for.”
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The pharmacy’s statement thanked the “the local community for reporting the fire, the fire rescue service who acted so promptly, and our police service who have managed to identify the culprits”.
In August 2024, two UK pharmacies were damaged by fires – one by a suspected electrical fault.
