THERE were whoops, cheers and more than a few tears in Lomond Parish Church when the Loch Lomond and The Trossachs National Park’s board announced that Flamingo Land’s mega-resort plans had finally been defeated. It was the result that the community and campaigners deserved.

After a three-hour site visit and six-hour public hearing, it was great to get back out into the fresh air and share more than a few hugs with local residents. It was certainly a long day, but that is nothing compared to the decade of stress and anxiety that the Yorkshire-based theme park operator has caused the community in Balloch.

The unanimous decision of the board was an immense relief for those of us who have been on the frontline of battling one of the most ridiculous planning applications in Scottish history, one that threatened to bulldoze over the natural environment, overwhelm Balloch and scar the iconic landscape at Loch Lomond.

The scale of Flamingo Land’s proposal was obscene. If successful it would have crammed 104 woodland lodges, a water park, two hotels, a monorail, 372 parking spaces and more into this beautiful corner of the loch at Balloch.

It would have been cultural and environmental vandalism. The developer’s own traffic assessment estimated that it would add more than 250 cars an hour to local roads at peak times, doubling tailbacks and increasing pollution.

It was no wonder that people – both locally and across Scotland – felt so strongly. The ruling and the jubilation that surrounded it were almost a decade in the making.

It was 2016 when Flamingo Land first unveiled proposals for their garish mega-resort. There was immediate and widespread opposition, forcing them to finally withdraw their proposal in 2019 after a huge campaign led by local residents and the Scottish Greens.

READ MORE: Subscribe for £10 for a year and get access to our Labour conference coverage

That time round, more than 60,000 people lodged objections via a portal created by the Greens, making the usually daunting experience of objecting to a planning application much easier. It became the most unpopular and widely opposed application in Scottish history.

Many breathed a big sigh of relief when the proposals were withdrawn, quietly hoping that Flamingo Land had learnt their lesson and that it was the end of the saga.

But, like the villain from a cheap horror movie, they came back in 2022 to try the same thing all over again. They claimed to have listened, but their new proposal was every bit as bad. The same scale of mega-resort on largely the same site, just rearranged and tweaked around the edges.

But this time round, even more people joined our call. An unprecedented 154,000 objections were lodged via the Scottish Greens.

If 154,000 people took the time to tell me I was wrong about something, I hope that I would show some self-awareness. But not Flamingo Land, they dragged it out until the bitter end against a community exhausted but determined not to be worn down.

Some of the most respected conservation groups in Scotland joined the campaign and added their objections. The Woodland Trust, National Trust for Scotland, Ramblers Scotland and the government’s own environmental watchdog, the Scottish Environment Protection Agency, all said no.

Even the National Park’s own expert officers submitted a report that meticulously critiqued the plan and recommended that their board reject it.

It was a massive team effort, with Scottish Green activists working alongside local campaigners, the community council and conservationists to build a movement. Local residents opposed Flamingo Land by a margin of three to one – but they were backed up by thousands from across Scotland.

Together we wrote letters, put up posters, spoke to neighbours, hired legal advisors and built a bulletproof case against the plans.

During their final debate, park board members repeatedly cited new planning protections secured by the Scottish Greens to curb environmentally damaging proposals. Planning policy is rarely a vote winner, but I’m glad our work on that framework paid off.

I hope this is the end of the line for Flamingo Land, but they still have exclusive rights to the site due to an agreement with the Scottish Government’s enterprise agency. It is long past time for this agreement to be ripped up and Flamingo Land’s grip on the area to be brought to an end.

Local people have shown time and again that Flamingo Land is neither needed nor wanted at Loch Lomond and the company itself has now repeatedly shown that they are incapable of bringing forward an appropriate proposal.

As frustrating and stressful as the last eight years have been, they have also shown the strength and importance of community organising and democracy. Balloch & Haldane’s Community Council has been reformed, a Community Development Trust has been set up and discussions have started on how we can make this beautiful corner of Scotland even more special.

I have never felt as proud to be the Scottish Green MSP for Balloch as I did sitting in the church on Monday evening. It was a historic victory for the local community, for our nature and for Scotland.