At the start of the week I published the first part of the story about the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park Authority (LLTNPA)’s involvement in the proposed Flamingo Land development at Balloch (see here).  In the process of checking  the evidence for the second part of the story, I came across this important piece of evidence which I had missed in my first post (which I have now updated).

When I had asked the LLTNPA for information they held about communications and meetings with Scottish Enterprise in the period leading up to and after Flamingo Land’s appointment in 2015, they claimed (EIR 2016 -051 response) that:

What the LLTNPA failed to declare was they also held information to show their planners had been in contact with Scottish Enterprise AFTER the meeting in March as evidenced by the email above (you can read all the emails provided in Appendix A here).  That was unlawful and is a summary offence under the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act (see here).  I only realised this when comparing the emails released by Scottish Enterprise with those released by the LLTNPA this week.

This evidence raises two important questions. Firstly, that if the contact between the planners and Scottish Enterprise was as innocent as LLTNPA claimed in EIR 2016/051 response, why did they fail to disclose this information?   The second is whether there was other information about planning staff’s involvement in the process to appoint Flamingo Land which they also withheld?

This additional evidence adds to the case that, contrary to the claims of the Park’s Chief Executive, LLTNPA planners had significant involvement in the plans to develop the Riverside Site, that it was Stuart Mearns, the head of planning, who attended the meeting in September 2015 to progress the Flamingo Land appointment and they have not followed due process “to the letter”.

On 20th August I wrote to Dr Heather Reid, the Convener of the LLTNPA – who has up until now jas refused to investigate the evidence of staff backing for the Flamingo Land development – to ask her to confirm the identity of the “Stuart” who attended that meeting with Scottish Enterprise.  So far she has not acknowledged that request.  I will now also ask Dr Reid and the Scottish Information Commissioner to investigate why LLTNPA staff failed to disclose all the information they held about their involvement in the process of appointing Flamingo Land as preferred developer for Balloch.