Meeting of the Parliament 11 June 2025
The Flamingo Land development clearly resonates across the country as a national concern, and the Scottish Government only just seems to have realised that. Like other members, I have had many emails objecting to the proposed huge theme park. There is widespread public dismay at the prospect of a theme park on the shores of one of Scotland’s national treasures and in an area of great beauty and a national park that the Parliament fought for.
The application is no ordinary one, and it is a pretence to suggest otherwise. Whether people are for or against it, it is clear that it will restrict full access to activities for people who visit Loch Lomond for the day. As Ross Greer said, the scale of the project is the most important consideration, against the backdrop of something that the country loves. That is the primary reason why the Government should have paid more attention to the issue—there is a lot to lose. According to a poll of Radio Times readers, Loch Lomond is the sixth-greatest natural wonder in Britain—and I can see that Jackie Baillie agrees with that.
It is questionable whether the proposal should have been given the go-ahead by the Scottish Government’s reporter after the plans were unanimously rejected by the national park board and opposed by the Scottish Environment Protection Agency, the National Trust for Scotland, the Woodland Trust and members of the local community. That the proposal met the planning criteria in the first place is questionable. Stuart Pearce, the director of place for the Loch Lomond and the Trossachs National Park Authority said that it created an “unacceptable risk” of flooding of the River Leven. Why was that ignored? More than 178,000 people signed a petition against the project. Of course, under planning law, those people have no right of appeal.
The scale of the objections should have told the reporter how controversial the development is. The objections also demonstrate that the decision needs to be properly justified, rather than, as has happened, leaving it open to question whether it is in fact a commercial one and not a planning one.
A single person was, perfectly lawfully, able to overturn all those objections from respected organisations, and in particular the national park board, as well as a large public petition. That begs a question about planning law. I think that it would have been perfectly competent to have a planning inquiry instead of a single decision maker, and that would have been more transparent. A public inquiry would have told us what the primary considerations were in coming to any conclusion. Now that the Government has called in the application, it has an opportunity to make the final decision more transparent and to show the public that it has listened to all the voices that have objected to what is, in my opinion, a dreadful proposal.
I had a look at Flamingo Land in North Yorkshire. Last year, a survey found that people thought that it was quite a disappointing theme park. If people turn up on the day, a family ticket for two adults and two children is £224. This is just my guess, but I suggest that, if the proposal gets the go-ahead, because the theme park will be in Loch Lomond and the Trossachs national park, the charge will be more than £224. Some reviews of the North Yorkshire park on Tripadvisor from May this year read quite grimly. Many people say that the park is overpriced and in need of upgrading—of course, it is a bit older—and, apparently, the animals look “tired” and “bored”. That made me laugh a bit.
There is a lot to think about. It might be appropriate for the development to be placed somewhere else rather than next to a national treasure.
It is clear that most people reject such a theme park being developed on the shores of Scotland’s best-known and most iconic loch. I realise that the issue is not only whether a majority is for or against the development. If the Government grants consent after bringing it in, it must show the public that it has fairly and transparently looked at the criteria for the application, which I look forward to reading.
16:30