A coronavirus testing facility was set on fire in what police said was a deliberate attack.

The canopy of a temporary testing centre in Dumbarton, near Glasgow, was set alight by an item thrown at it in the early hours of New Year’s Day.

Police Scotland made an appeal for witnesses to come forward, amid fears that the incident was an escalation of recent targeting of coronavirus facilities by conspiracy theorists who oppose vaccinations.

Last week, police in England made an appeal for information after a “protest” in Milton Keynes in which dozens of people were filmed disrupting a testing facility, with some shouting anti-vaccination slogans.