It’s the last day of the school holidays and dozens of families are spending it at Balloch on the southern shores of Loch Lomond, as generations of other Scots have done for many decades. They lay out their rugs and open their flasks on this unspoilt stretch of parkland beside the ancient Drumkinnon Wood. There’s an ice cream van nearby and down there at the water’s edge two pleasure cruisers are filling up prior to a journey across the loch.
These southern shores and the waters beyond have acted as the lungs for Glaswegians eager to escape the dark satanic mills of heavy industry. A half hour journey by train, car or bicycle was all it took for a cheap day out beside one of the world’s most glorious and storeyed waterways. It’s an idyllic scene, but it’s hard to escape a feeling of despondency.
If Scottish Enterprise and Loch Lomond & the Trossachs National Park get their way, the last stretch of publicly-owned land on the banks of Loch Lomond will be taken from local people and handed to a Yorkshire-based leisure conglomerate called Flamingo Land or - for the purposes of their proposed development - Lomond Banks. Next month, the LLTNP board will make a final decision on whether or not this massive development will go ahead. Local campaigners, backed by a petition signed by more than 150,000 people, believe that if the park authority gives it the green light a vital part of the Loch Lomond landscape will be erased for good.
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