Planning applications have an incredible ability to mobilise communities at the drop of hat, energising people who rarely engage with formal legal or political processes. Most of these campaigns are hyper-local, to save a park from luxury housing or stop a motorway smashing its way through a town. Some take on a wider importance though. The battle currently taking place on the shores of Loch Lomond is one of those.
Fifty-five thousand people have joined our campaign to stop the proposed ‘Flamingoland’ development at Balloch, their formal objections making this the most unpopular application in Scottish history. This is no ordinary planning dispute though, it’s a question about who owns Scotland and who our beautiful country is for.
The overwhelming majority of the land is currently in public hands, owned by a government agency. Putting it simply, this is a plan to sell off public land, in a world famous national park, for a private developer to profit from.
One of the wonderful things about Balloch is how accessible it makes Loch Lomond. Any family from across west and central Scotland can manage a day out for the price of a bus or train ticket there. This sprawling fifty acre resort would fundamentally change that. Whether they keep the gates open or not, it’s quite clear who this high-end resort is for.
A casual reading of the developer’s own environmental impact assessment shows quite clearly why rejection should be the National Park board’s conclusion. Damage to ancient woodland, pollution of running and standing water and red squirrel and otter fatalities are some of the most striking features. And that’s not to mention residents’ serious concerns about traffic and the impact on local infrastructure. You only need to visit on a sunny bank holiday weekend to see how justified they are to be worried about the effect of hundreds more cars on local roads.
Given the developer’s own impact assessment, even after factoring in their mitigation efforts, came to these conclusions, they are left to argue that an ‘overriding public interest’ should allow them to bypass environmental protections. The overriding interest they’ve chosen, jobs, has fallen apart as this saga has gone on, with Flamingoland now offering less than half of the jobs they originally promised. Their own assessment notes that 75% of those jobs would be created even if their development didn’t go ahead.
This is hardly the only option for local job creation. Growing the recent success of film and TV based tourism and the proposed Turkey Red heritage centre and café in Alexandria are just two examples I’m already supporting. And a cursory Google search for the thoughts of former staff will tell you that our communities deserve better than the employment conditions Flamingoland are known for.
Scotland’s record for selling off huge swathes of public land is already a dismal one. Why on Earth do we want to add the most accessible part of Loch Lomond to that list? Let’s put our environment and our communities first this time.
Ross Greer is Scottish Green MSP for the West of Scotland
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