Background – East Loch Lomond Community Trust (ELLCT) concluded the successful Asset Transfer Request (ATR) with Stirling Council (SC) of the ‘former toilet block site’ in 2019 at the entrance of Balmaha car park under the Community Empowerment (Scotland) Act 2015.
On 15 January 2020, SC held a drop-in at the Memorial Hall, Milton of Buchanan to outline proposals to start charging in the car park. At that event, numerous people asked officials if any of the income would be ring-fenced for the community and were told it would not.
At the Trustees’ Meeting on 29 January 2020 it was agreed to move forward with the third part of the original ATR for Balmaha car park as had been discussed by different community groups over many years. At that time we had the support of a Stirling Council Community Development officer.
A complete and competent ATR and business plan was submitted to SC on 12 October 2020.
On 30 March 2021, SC Planning and Regulation Panel agreed to approve parking charges in Blamaha car park.
The East Loch Lomond Community Trust ATR was not officially recognised until 8 June 2021. The original decision date was 7 December 2021. There were then 11 extensions officially requested by SC and agreed by ELLCT.
All further information requested by SC was supplied, including an updated business plan (November 2023) which took into account the parking charges being in place and to reflect current level of the community support via a community survey, which returned an overwhelming endorsement of the original support.
On 12 April 2024 Stirling Council (SC) failed to meet the requirements of the legislation and notify East Loch Lomond Community Trust of an official decision.
Currently – after seeking advice and in line with the Act, ELLCT sent a ‘Request for Review’ to SC dated 9 May 2024. According to the legislation SC had 10 days to respond. The official response was received on 1 October 2024.
The review has been tasked to the Finance, Economy and Corporate Committee. The review process has a deadline of 8 November 2024.
ELLCT has asked for a hearing as part of the review process and are waiting to hear if the committee will agree to this.
In 2021 there was a public consultlation for the ATR which saw 14 responses from ‘interested parties’ these respondents will now be contacted again by Stirling Council and informed where to access the review documents and how to respond within 10 days, should they wish to make further representations.
ELLCT will ask SC for more details regarding some of the key parts of the process as outlined in the Scottish government guidelines and will update further if required.
This a lot of information, please get in touch for more clarification. The Request for Review documents are on SC website here