It’s the last day of the school holidays and dozens of families are spending it at Balloch on the southern shores of Loch Lomond, as generations of other Scots have done for many decades. They lay out their rugs and open their flasks on this unspoilt stretch of parkland beside the ancient Drumkinnon Wood. There’s an ice cream van nearby and down there at the water’s edge two pleasure cruisers are filling up prior to a journey across the loch.

These southern shores and the waters beyond have acted as the lungs for Glaswegians eager to escape the dark satanic mills of heavy industry. A half hour journey by train, car or bicycle was all it took for a cheap day out beside one of the world’s most glorious and storeyed waterways.

It’s an idyllic scene, but it’s hard to escape a feeling of despondency. If Scottish Enterprise and Loch Lomond & the Trossachs National Park get their way, the last stretch of publicly-owned land on the banks of Loch Lomond will be taken from local people and handed to a Yorkshire-based leisure conglomerate called Flamingo Land or - for the purposes of their proposed development - Lomond Banks.

Next month, the LLTNP board will make a final decision on whether or not this massive development will go ahead. Local campaigners, backed by a petition signed by more than 150,000 people, believe that if the park authority gives it the green light a vital part of the Loch Lomond landscape will be erased for good.

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The campaigners who have been fighting this proposal are not opposed to development. Balloch and the surrounding communities are in dire need of a sustainable strategy to support local businesses and start-ups. This would include sustainable, long-term jobs paying real living wages; affordable housing and upgrading the treacherous A82. Crucially, it would be created by the local communities who are the natural stewards of these places and know them better than anyone else.

They simply don’t believe that a sprawling leisure development with a contrived, 1970s’ Abigail’s-Party-goes-to-Scotland look chimes with one of the country’s most sacred wild spaces. Under the current plans for Flamingo Land by the loch, the developer is seeking to build a budget hotel and more than 100 wooden lodges.

There’s to be a leisure pool, restaurants and a spa (there’s always a spa). For reasons not fully explained there’s to be a microbrewery and a monorail. There will be 130 parking spaces, but restricted to the exclusive use of hotel guests. Most absurd of all is a planned ‘water park’. Why would you need a water park when you’ve already got the grandest expanse of water in the UK?

I’m with Alannah Maurer, a local resident who was brought up near Loch Lomond’s banks. She’s been one of the campaigning stalwarts and admits to being wearied that we’re still here after eight years. I suggest that the fact she and her cohorts are still here is a triumph in itself. “Big business and Civic Scotland panjandrums will be scunnered that you’re still here.”

We’re joined by Lynne Somerville, Chair of the Balloch and Haldane Community Council who has breathed new life into the campaign to save this part of Loch Lomond from unsuitable development. Ms Somerville and her fellow campaigners plan to form a Community Development Trust to transfer the land around Balloch and the Drumkinnon Wood into community ownership. They make repeated references to Scotland’s 2015 Community Empowerment Act and subsequent Land Reform legislation.

The banks of Loch LomondThe banks of Loch Lomond (Image: Colin Mearns/Herald Scotland)

“There is a poverty trap around here – as in other rural areas - that people fall into,” says Ms Somerville. “We feel the Flamingo Land development will exacerbate that generational poverty that so many people in this area are stuck in. The economy is part of a fragile eco-system and this development will tip it in the wrong direction.

“More than 80% of local businesses responding to a survey are against this and cite potential closure through absorption of their footfall into this massive development. We want to bring in ideas that will bolster the economy and that will be in line with the National Planning Framework and with NSET (National Strategy for Economic Transformation). We think this affords the best chance that our current generation and those to come to break that generational cycle of poverty.”

She cites an absurd moment during a meeting last week with planning officials from the National Park authority. “I’d asked the planning officers if, when making their decision, they would be aligning their outputs with NSET. Not one of them knew what NSET was.

“I then had to tell them what the acronym meant and why it was crucial to this. The fact that they don’t even know what’s in their own handbook speaks volumes.” A very cynical person would say that such ignorance suggests that this is already a done deal.

Locals who fear a ‘done deal’ point to the existence of a curious Exclusivity Agreement which subsequently emerged between Scottish Enterprise and the developers. When Flamingo Land withdrew their original application following 60,000 objections collected by the Scottish Greens MSP, Ross Greer it seemed the local campaigners had won.

Since then though, the developers have re-submitted their proposals and say they are more sympathetic to the concerns of the objectors and residents. It was then that the exclusivity agreement with Scottish Enterprise which owns most of the land, became known.

Alannah Maurer said: “The disparity between how we’ve been treated in comparison with other communities across Scotland is unacceptable on so many levels.

“It’s absurd to think that the Scottish Government would agree with that Exclusivity Agreement and that the land should be sold over and above the wishes of the community.

“They were the ones who brought forward the Community Empowerment Act and the Land Reform Act. This isn’t abiding by any of it. They’re choosing to ignore that this is undermining all of it. Our community is being discriminated against and we want to know why.

“Throughout all of this, there is a cost element. This whole process costs a lot of money for us to maintain and they know it. The land in question is classed as brownfield but it’s never been brownfield in my lifetime. It’s evidently a greenfield site.”

Yesterday, Scottish Enterprise spokesperson said: “Scottish Enterprise has had a legally-binding Exclusivity Agreement, and then latterly a legally-binding Conditional Missive in place with the proposed developers since they were selected as the preferred bidder following an open marketing process for the site in 2015. During that process, no community interest was submitted. 

“We have met with Balloch and Haldane Community Council to discuss their recent interest in the site and advised that any Community Asset Transfer Request would be considered in line with the relevant legislation.”

Lynne Somerville and Alannah MaurerLynne Somerville and Alannah Maurer (Image: Colin Mearns/Herald Scotland)

Ozgur Koca, a local restaurateur, is vehemently opposed to the Flamingo Land development and fears that the fragile roads infrastructure in this part of Scotland will be unable to bear the resulting pressure. “It will be absolute carnage,” he said.

“In any emergency there’s no way you’ll be able to get through. I can go to these shores and see all the wildlife and no one charges me a penny. No one should have the right to take ownership of this for commercial purposes and fence it off. It’s unthinkable that we’ll no longer be permitted to walk through those woods with our families or have a picnic there.”

Peter Broughan, another long-term campaigner agrees that the southern shores require some sort of community development, but that this should be by the community for the community.

“I’m old enough to remember the wonderfully awful Angus McChuckemup in 7.84’s the Cheviot, The Stag and the Black Black Oil. I’m also fortunate to live very close to the south shore of the Loch.

“When Scottish Enterprise originally gave this public land to Flamingo Land, and fully backed and helped to finance their plans, it was another example of why their title is an oxymoron.

“If the land is to be developed, then it should be towards the creation of something that benefits both the environment and the public good. I would personally back the creation of a water sports centre but others might have different and equally viable ideas.”

None of those many campaigners I’ve met since 2018 harbour any animosity to the proposed developers. “Why would we,” said Ms Maurer. “Anyone would relish the chance to grab a piece of the most beautiful real estate in Britain.”

One of the few comparable UK sites in terms of beauty and grandeur that rivals Loch Lomond is the Lake District in Cumbria, not far north of Flamingo Land’s Yorkshire headquarters. It’s highly unlikely that the guardians of those hills and lakes would permit any of them to be annexed and turned into a private fun-park.