THE director of the company seeking to build a holiday park on the banks of Loch Lomond has claimed the plans for the development have been subject to "constant misinformation" and "weaponised as a political football".
The Lomond Banks development — which is also known as the Flamingo Land development due to the developer's theme park owning parent company — has faced major opposition from the Scottish Greens and concerned locals.
Initial plans for a resort near the village of Balloch in West Dunbartonshire were withdrawn in 2019 after a Scottish Greens petition demanding the plans be scrapped attracted more than 60,000 signatures.
However, the plans for up to 104 lodges, 372 parking spaces, two hotels, a waterpark and even a monorail were revised under a new company name, Lomond Banks, in 2022.
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Since then, objections lodged on the Scottish Greens' petition have exceeded 150,000.
But Lomond Banks' development director, Jim Paterson, has taken aim at "activists, parties and campaign groups" for opposing the plans after a key report from the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park Authority recommended the application for development be rejected.
"Whilst this absolutely isn’t the end of the road for our application, we can’t help but think the decision by Loch Lomond and the Trossachs Park Authority this week, to recommend for refusal, has been heavily influenced by the constant misinformation that has been peddled by the various activists, parties and campaign groups," said Paterson.
“We are businesspeople, not politicians, and have deliberately not indulged in this relentless rhetoric for the last two and half years, since we resubmitted our plans. We have stuck to the facts and truth surrounding our proposals, but this development has been weaponised as a political football.
“Labelled a ‘mega resort’ from the get-go and claims that it is the ‘most objected to development in Scottish history’ is based on an online Green Party petition that does not ask for proof of address or prevent multiple clicks.
“Unfortunately, it feels like, so far, the click-bait antics have been favoured and the merits and benefits of this development in terms of sustainability, much-needed job creation and tens of millions of pounds of investment have been lost.”
Paterson's comments come ahead of a final decision on the development by Loch Lomond and The Trossachs Park Authority board, which is due to be handed down on September 16.
Despite major concerns about the scale of the development, which includes two hotels, up to 100 self-catering lodges and a waterpark, Paterson said it was a "sympathetic mix".
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“When you drill down to what this development is – it’s a sympathetic mix of hotels and woodland lodges and associated leisure facilities, utilising an area of West Riverside which has wrongly been quoted as ‘the last piece of land in public ownership around the banks of Loch Lomond’.
There would be “no theme parks, no flamingos, but instead, a sustainable world-class destination that will help support Scotland’s tourism industry and job market for many years to come," he added.
However, Scottish Greens MSP Ross Greer labelled Paterson's comments as "desperate stuff".
“This is desperate stuff from Flamingo Land," he said.
"Rather than address the serious concerns raised by the National Park’s own expert planning officers, they have once again decided to attack the Scottish Greens.
"We’re proud that our campaign to save Loch Lomond has got under their skin, but we’re far prouder of how the community in Balloch have come together over the last decade to stop these destructive mega-resort plans.
“150,000 people have made it clear that they want to save Loch Lomond from Flamingo Land. We’ve been joined in this campaign by the Woodland Trust, National Trust, Ramblers Scotland, Balloch & Haldane Community Council and many other organisations.
"Duplicate objections which come in via the Scottish Greens’ portal are removed, but this application is so spectacularly unpopular that even if you threw out half of the genuine responses, it would still be by far the most unpopular planning application ever.
“If Flamingo Land had any dignity, they would withdraw these daft plans and leave Loch Lomond in peace.”
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