MSP Seeks Government Intervention on Flamingo Land
Green MSP Ross Greer has written to Government Ministers, calling on them to pull the plug on Flamingo Land’s bid for a development on the shores of Loch Lomond. The local representative has described the situation as 'a long-running saga which has exhausted the community and needs to end'.
Yorkshire-based Flamingo Land withdrew their application for a large, controversial development in Balloch on 17th September 2019 after a record 60,000 objections collected by the Scottish Greens and the community-led Save Loch Lomond campaign. However, the developer still maintains an 'exclusivity agreement' with Scottish Enterprise, the Scottish Government agency who own almost all of the site. This agreement means that only Flamingo Land can buy the land and has already been extended by two years but is due to expire in December of this year. It is expected that a further extension would be negotiated if Flamingo Land wished to lodge a new application.
Ross Greer MSP, who set up a website to help over 57,000 people lodge their objections to the original plan, has been collecting signatures for a new petition calling for the exclusivity agreement to end. This petition has collected nearly 13,000 signatures so far and Greer has now written to Fiona Hyslop, the Scottish Government's Economy Secretary, urging her to ensure the agreement with Flamingo Land is not renewed.
Greer, Green MSP for the West of Scotland, commented,
“As the anniversary of Flamingo Land’s first defeat by the community approaches, we're still in the dark on whether or not they'll try again in the coming months. This long-running saga has exhausted the community and it needs to end. Flamingo Land lost, they are not welcome and they need to move on.
“Whether that happens is ultimately in the hands of the Scottish Government and their economic agency. They can either extend the agreement, again, which would likely mean yet more years of Flamingo Land fighting for an inappropriate, damaging and unwanted development and the community being forced to once again fight back, or they can cancel the exclusivity agreement and support local residents to decide what an appropriate future for the site would be."