Meeting of the Parliament 11 June 2025
The proposed development at Loch Lomond has definitely filled my inbox more than any other planning issue over the years. My office has dubbed it the “Loch Lomond monster” in the past couple of weeks, such is the great strength of feeling around it.
This long-standing saga is symptomatic of a much wider issue: how planning decisions are made in Scotland; how they are consulted on; how objections are dealt with; how long decisions take; and whether we need a wider root-and-branch review of the entire planning regime—which, incidentally, we do.
I do not want to linger on the very well-rehearsed arguments for and against the development. A lot has already been said about that and, dare I say it, there has been a fair amount of political opportunism. There seems to be a very live competition about who is taking credit for bringing the topic to the chamber the most times.
However, on the substance of the debate, there are people who are in favour of the development, and I think that it is fair to comment on that. Perhaps those are the 35 per cent of people who responded to Jackie Baillie’s survey who believe that the development will deliver jobs and investment.
There are claims—and they are claims—that the development will lead to up to £40 million of investment across the west of Scotland, provide up to 200 new jobs and bring around £3.4 million to the local economy. Job creation or economic growth in the west of Scotland is not to be sniffed at, and the reporter seemed to agree.
However, we cannot ignore the great number of those who were opposed to the development. They had valid concerns about road capacity on the A82 and environmental concerns about the effect on wildlife and ancient woodland. They also had many suspicions about the true economic or employment value of the whole project.
The minister is right to say that this is a matter of national significance, particularly given the polarisation of views, although the nature and location of the development are important, too. I believe that, in this instance, calling in the application is probably the right thing to do. My natural instinct is to keep ministers as far away from planning decisions as we can, but, nonetheless, escalating such decisions is an appropriate part of the planning process.
I have a bit of a problem with today’s debate, because the Government’s 11th-hour announcement that it will call in the application is quite an embarrassing one. The Government was staring down the barrel of a defeat at decision time today and the minister has caved accordingly.
Initial proposals for the development were brought back on 1 January 2018. Since then, they have been withdrawn, rejected, appealed, approved and again face potential defeat. The problem with that uncertainty is that it is not fair on either local residents or the developer, which I am surprised did not walk away from the project ages ago.
I will explain what I am nervous about. If every proposed major development in Scotland results in a seven-year-long battle, which has to end in a debate in its national Parliament, good luck in attracting any future investment. For future investment to happen, two things must happen in parallel. First, local communities must be confident that planning, consultation and appeals processes are truly fit for purpose—and we all know that many do not believe that to be the case. Secondly, future investors must know that Scotland is open for business and that applications will be treated fairly and squarely, free from rhetoric and falsehoods.
This long, drawn-out saga has damaged confidence in investing in our tourism sector just as much as it has damaged confidence in our current planning processes.
I am uncomfortable with leaving a decision such as this to the Government, which is bereft of consistency when it comes to overturning local decisions. I am just as uncomfortable with leaving a major multimillion-pound investment decision to sit on the desks of ministers when they already have a lengthy backlog of decisions to make, including, for example, on the Loch Long salmon farm. Those are decisions that ministers deem are far too controversial to go ahead with.
My one ask of ministers today, which is perhaps naive in an election year, is simply this: please do not let politics get in the way of sensible evidence-based decision making in making this decision. The Scottish Government will have to carry the can, and it will have to own any decision that it makes. I wish the Government good luck—it is going to need it.