Delivery of the Balloch Village Plans (Street Design) project moves a step closer

On Wednesday evening an event was held in the National Park Headquarters in Balloch where the outline designs for the Balloch Street Design project were presented to an audience of over 60 people.

This community-led street design process, which has been looking at improving areas around the station and in the town centre, is a partnership between Sustrans Scotland, West Dunbartonshire Council and Loch Lomond & The Trossachs National Park Authority.

The outline designs have been guided and influenced by the valuable and constructive feedback received from the public consultation events held over the last few months.

During the evening staff from Sustrans and West Dunbartonshire Council provided an update on the progress in the designs following consultation and on the timelines and process moving forward. The Council will develop detailed designs for delivery over the next few years. They aim for the first of the projects to be constructed early in 2018 and provided the indicative project delivery timeline below. We will keep you posted with updates as the project develops to delivery.

STAGE 1: Design development (June – Dec 2017)

• Village Square and Balloch Rd West detailed design June – Sept 2017
• Procurement of works Oct – Dec 2017
• Station Square developed design June – Dec 2017

STAGE 2: Village Square and Balloch Rd West delivery (Jan – April 2018)

STAGE 3: Station Square technical design (Jan – April 2018)

STAGE 4: Station Square delivery (Nov 2018 – Mar 2019)

Audience members were given the opportunity to raise any questions they had on the street design plans with several questions posed around parking and the potential impact the street design project could have on this. You can find out more on the outline designs for the Balloch Village Plans that will be handed to West Dunbartonshire Council here https://ballochproposals.commonplace.is/overview

The National Park Authority provided an update on the street design project within the context of priority projects identified in last year’s Charrette report. It was highlighted that there was good progress being made by partners across the projects – you can find an update in our May blog. To help keep these projects coordinated a steering group has been formed with representatives from the different project partners involved, including the community council.

One of these project areas is at West Riverside.  A representative from the prospective developer at West Riverside provided an update to the audience on their proposals. They explained that they are currently concluding site investigation and technical reviews with the results of these informing their plans. Audience members were keen to find out from the prospective developers at West Riverside details on their proposals with questions raised on issues such as traffic impacts and the potential landscape impacts from the proposals.

We will keep you posted with updates as the charrette projects develop. Please let us know any questions you have via livepark@lochlomond-trossachs.org or Facebook comments.