Revised plans for Lomond Banks - the proposed £40m holiday park in Balloch - have been submitted to Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park.
The resubmission follows ongoing community feedback throughout the planning application process and a recent request from the national park authority to ensure the proposals further meet the sustainable vision for the area at West Riverside and Woodbank House.
Developers Flamingo Land stated that all the authority's feedback was considered, along with that from the local community and other stakeholders, with "significant amendments" made to support questions raised around the scale of development, biodiversity, traffic and parking.
Some of the changes include the complete removal of the proposed 'Area 10' from within the application’s red line boundary, with existing woodland retained instead.
These previously-proposed staff accommodation facilities will now be absorbed into other areas of the development, including Station Square, Woodbank House and Visitor Hub.
The density of holiday accommodation at Woodbank House has also been reduced, by removing all 17 woodland bothies alongside five woodland lodges from this development area.
Existing non-native and invasive species will also be removed and replaced with native trees and planting instead, according to the updated plan.
The reduced scale of development has produced further opportunities to plant more trees, enhancing the woodland setting for many of the self-catering lodges.
It has also allowed the retention of all trees in the former area set aside for staff facilities and increased native tree planting at Woodbank.
Lomond Banks has also committed to retaining the amount of previously-proposed compensatory planting, ensuring there is no reduction in terms of the input to biodiversity value.
Jim Paterson, development director for Lomond Banks, said: “We have been committed to listening to the national park, the local community, local businesses and all other key stakeholders, and their feedback to date has really helped to shape our plans into something that fits the vision for a tourism business of the future, which Balloch and the wider Loch Lomond area could truly benefit from.
“We welcomed this latest feedback from the park authority and much of it aligned with what we were hearing from the community.”
Lomond Banks has also provided further information on its parking strategy to reassure the national park on the "ample provision" it has put in place across the development for the facilities it will be offering.
Paterson added: “I must be very clear that the opposition is using traffic and parking as a scaremongering tool and their statistics and conclusions are simply not accurate.
“Whilst we do appreciate the road network is an ongoing concern for those living around the A82, our surveys have indicated that the development simply will not bring the concentrated numbers at peak times that it is being accused of and we have mitigated this further by introducing measures such as staggered check-in and check-out times to ensure this is not the case.
“All traffic surveys submitted to our statutory consultees West Dunbartonshire Council Roads Department have, to date, been satisfactory,“ he continued. “We have also submitted a comprehensive parking strategy to the national park and conducted further surveys through peak seasons to submit to the parks authority.”
In addition to traffic and transport, the national park asked Lomond Banks to provide assurances around the location and position of the John Muir Way, as a walkway of national importance. The developer has clarified this and assured once again its position on providing permanent access to all.
Paterson concluded: “We believe our proposals continue to fulfil the objectives set out in the Local Development Plan and in the Balloch Charrette - and that these revisions address the matters raised by interested parties, benefitting the area, in a manner that both the local and wider community can be truly proud of for generations to come.”
The resubmission triggers a 30-day consultation period with all statutory consultees, before the application can be progressed and determined by the national park authority.
The developers dropped previous plans in 2019 after a campaign led by the Scottish Greens submitted a record 60,000 objections. There have already been 40,000 objections to the current proposal.
Green MSP for West Scotland, Ross Greer, commented: “These revisions show just how flawed Flamingoland's plans have always been - they are also quite clearly a response to both the overwhelming public opposition and to the detailed letter of objection submitted by my team.
"This is far from over though, we may have saved the ancient woodland, but what the developers are proposing is still totally inappropriate and will lead to extra congestion and a strain on local services, never mind the huge impact it will have on the local landscape.
“"If we are to protect the world-famous natural landscape of Loch Lomond then we need to see off Flamingo Land once and for all.”
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