Improvements to RSPB Loch Lomond Nature Hub, Winter 2023-24
Since 2015, at Loch Lomond Nature Reserve, the RSPB has been running a small-scale visitor operation from a converted exhibition trailer, accompanied by a small car park and festival-style portable toilets.
During this time, we have welcomed thousands of visitors to the reserve to enjoy the rich landscapes and wildlife found in this part of Scotland, many of whom will have met one of our friendly team of staff and volunteers working at the “Nature Hub”.
We have improved access significantly by installing new nature trails, and now we are welcoming double the number of visitors than this time 12 months ago, meaning many more people are connecting with nature in this wonderful place.
This visitor offer now requires some improvements, both for the staff and volunteers who work from there, and for our visitors.
The first of these will be some changes to car parking. Since the completion of the new Lomond Trail, we have greater demand on our car park, which becomes full much more quickly as visitors now stay for a much longer time to experience the full offer at the site and dwell time has increased from 1-2hours to 3-5hours. As well as this, our accessible spaces are now used most days, as we welcome more visitors with a variety of mobility needs.
At times this summer, we have had to close the gates to the car park as it had reached capacity and was causing traffic queues on the main road. This is disappointing for visitors who have travelled a long distance to visit the reserve, but also necessary to protect the site, visitors, volunteers and staff.
To improve the situation, we are planning to install an overflow car parking area, adjacent to the existing car park, which will only be made available when the main car park is full and on event days. This will be created using a temporary ground reinforcement material, which is pegged in place, and can easily be removed when no longer required. The surface will grow through to look just like a grass field and will have minimal impact on the look and feel of the site. We will also be converting three of our existing car parking spaces into two new accessible spaces, meaning we will increase our accessible bays from one to three. Overall, this will increase our available car park area from 15 spaces plus 1 accessible bay, to 29 spaces plus 3 accessible bays.
Additionally, we will be upgrading our toilets. Whilst we have prided ourselves on having the most well looked after chemical toilets in the National Park, they are still not what you would expect from a 4-star Visitor Experience. Instead, we will replace these units with an inclusive and accessible toilet block, consisting of 3 individual toilet rooms, one of which will be fully accessible, located in the same place as the existing toilets.
The Nature Hub and toilet block will be connected via an accessible ramp and both the toilet block and Nature Hub will also be fitted with solar-powered lighting.
We are confident that these changes will provide significant improvements to the visitor experience on site with minimal impact on the surrounding landscape, providing a more inclusive experience for all.