National Park sets out vision for housing, business and tourism over the next 10 years

Named ‘LIVE Park’, the Plan outlines an ambitious vision for making Loch Lomond & The Trossachs National Park an attractive and viable place for young people and families to live and work, for businesses to start and grow and improving the experience for visitors whilst also protecting the unique environment of the area over the next 10 years.

Following extensive engagement and consultation during the process to prepare the Plan, it has now been formally adopted by the National Park Authority as its Local Development Plan, the legal document to determine all planning decisions in the National Park. The Plan will be updated every five years.

It identifies potential opportunities that could shape the future development of the National Park including:

• An annual target to deliver 75 new homes across the area to sustain communities and meet demand for smaller, more modest sized and affordable homes for young people, families and older people,
• Sites for tourism and leisure development that will help grow and enhance the quality of the Park as a visitor destination,
• Supporting new businesses in and around towns and villages that create local jobs and diversification of the rural economy,
• A new bridge, housing, hotel and riverside park in Callander, the largest town in the National Park,
• Creating a central village hub in Arrochar alongside housing and tourism development at Arrochar, Succoth and Tarbet,
• Bringing listed buildings such as Balloch Castle and Woodbank House back into use,
• Improvements to Balloch village centre and new development that will link with Loch Lomond Shores.

Whilst Arrochar, Balloch and Callander are expected to see the biggest change over the next 20 years, the Plan also identifies development opportunities in the Park’s smaller villages that will support their long term sustainability.

Gordon Watson, Chief Executive of Loch Lomond & The Trossachs National Park said: “The National Park is an amazing place and a special landscape with so much to offer and LIVE Park sets out the opportunities for it to continue to thrive and develop sensitively as a place for people to live, invest, visit and experience over the next ten years.

“We’ve worked really closely with people and organisations from across the Park to find out how they want to see that happen. I’m delighted that we can now adopt the Plan and look forward to seeing how the Park develops over the next decade.”

The Park Authority won the Overall Award for Community Involvement at the Scottish Awards for Quality in Planning in 2015 for their innovative approach to getting people involved in the planning process and making the new plan a visual, simple and user-friendly document. At this year’s awards the Park Authority also won an award in the Plans category. The judges gave the award because of the simplicity, clarity and graphic style adopted for the Local Development Plan.

Stuart Mearns, Head of Rural Development & Planning at the National Park said: “We are delighted that the Plan is now adopted. It provides a firm foundation to help attract and guide inward investment, helping to grow the rural economy and enhance the Park’s towns and villages. We are already seeing an increase in development activity and developer interest in key locations including Balloch and Callander as well as some of our smaller communities, such as Luss where new affordable housing is currently being built. Strong partnership working established between landowners, developers, public agencies and communities during the process to prepare the Plan has been central to achieving this and our focus next year will be to use the Plan as the basis for securing continued investment in the National Park.

To find out more about the Local Development Plan on the Live Park page click here.