Luss Smokehouse - Luss CC objection
Argyll and Bute Council · 25 February 2025
Back to Argyll and Bute Licensing Board — 25 February 2025 and its agenda
Text extracted from the council's PDF. Layout and reading order may differ from the original.
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Message sent on Behalf of Luss & Arden Community Council
Dear Kelly
Thank you for your email of 20 January 2025, regarding the above application.
We added this item to our agenda at our January 25 Community Council meeting where we
had an opportunity to discuss and listen to representations made by those attending (it was
a meeting well-attended by local residents). We also invited representatives of Loch
Lomond Group ("LLG") to attend a Q & A session. We received email and other
communications from residents.
The new Distillery and Visitor Development ("development") is in the heart of Luss, a
conservation village, and has drawn a lot of comments from residents who are very
concerned about both the nature of business and the hours of business proposed and as
such we object to the application as it stands.
The main areas of concern are that the Licenced Hours of on sales and off sales applied for
bear no relation to the operation that was outlined to the community by the applicants
previously. Residents' expectations are that the development operates between 10am and
6pm, outside of which the village residents will have some respite from the huge numbers
of visitors who can often overwhelm the village infrastructure (c750k visitors with c200
village residents). We have a particularly difficult anti-social aspect in Luss during peak
visitor times, with the congregation of groups in and around the pier area and the village
(involving drinking, music, drugs, beach fires, fighting, litter etc) which already severely and
detrimentally impacts the quality of life for our residents. In our experience, businesses
remaining open later simply encourages those groups to remain longer.
We have recently had a TRO introduced to the village with paid for permit parking for
residents, who often cannot park in those spaces due to visitors unauthorised parking - late
opening will inevitably encourage this unauthorised parking which is incredibly frustrating
for those who live in the village and have paid their permit fees, but cannot park their cars
close to their homes.
The very wide nature of the business operations in the application, which has been
explained to us by LLG is to cover the odd late opening event related to their business
activities, has also worried residents who have also objected very strongly to the prospect of
a wide range of special celebratory events involving music, food and beverage. It implied
again that the development scope will be allowed to "creep" and evolve into something
beyond that which has been previously outlined.
We respectfully ask you to think carefully about how best to manage the licencing process
for this application, to which we object, that does not have unintended and highly
detrimental consequences for our village residents.
Yours sincerelyPage 2
Alison Charters Convenor Luss & Arden Community Council