Flamingo Land theme park decision date revealed for banks of Loch Lomond

The £40 million Lomond Banks development, by Yorkshire company Flamingo Land, would see a mega-resort featuring a waterpark, monorail, 104 woodland lodges, two hotels, 372 car parking spaces, shops and restaurants built at Balloch, at the southern tip of the famous loch.

The operator claims the project would create hundreds of jobs and raise around £3m for the local economy. But the proposals have sparked widespread opposition, with many believing the natural landscape should be preserved at all costs.

More than 97,000 people have signed an online petition opposing the plans. Now Loch Lomond and the Trossach National Park Authority (LLTNPA), which is responsible for planning, has announced that a site visit, public hearing and board meeting will be held on September 16 to determine the fate of the Flaming Land resort.

The hearing, will be held at a suitable local venue – to be confirmed at a later date – in Balloch.

High public interest

“This application has not yet been decided,” a spokesperson for LLTNP Authority said. “No position has yet been taken, in support of or against this planning application.

“However, with high levels of public interest, we felt it would be useful to set out as early as possible the process for taking a decision. Officers now have all the information required to assess the application, and that assessment will continue between now and September.

“All submitted documents, consultee responses and representations from the public are being considered as part of the assessment. Once the assessment phase has concluded, a report will be published that includes a recommendation to board members that they either approve or refuse the application.”

Ramping up peatland restoration in Loch Lomond and the Trossachs – Scotland’s original national park

The report will be published on the authority website in early September, before the board meeting, along with information about the hearing. Balloch is a gateway to the famed “bonnie banks” of Loch Lomond and the national park, which attracts more than four million visitors each year.

The developers say the plans, which were redrawn in 2022 after a previous application from 2016 was scrapped, will have “minimal impact” on existing roads, which can be busy with visitors.

They have also signed up to the ‘Lomond promise’, a voluntary undertaking that legally binds the developer into obligations such as no zero-hour contracts, job and training opportunities for local people and real living wages.

Opposition

The Scottish Greens have led the Save Loch Lomond campaign since the first Flamingo Land plans were submitted in 2016. With upwards of 97,000 objections, they claim the latest scheme is “the most unpopular planning application in Scottish history”.

Green MSP Ross Greer said: “Flamingo Land’s destructive plans would scar this world-famous natural landscape, endanger precious wildlife, increase traffic on already dangerously congested roads and seriously threaten local small businesses.

“The community have fought against these proposals for almost a decade now, defeating the first application and collecting a record number of objections to this latest version. Now it's time for the board of the national park to stand up for Loch Lomond and for Balloch residents, reject these destructive plans and end almost a decade of misery for the local community.”