Presenter Kirsty Young and her husband have been granted permission to build a short-stay holiday lodge on Loch Lomond’s famous ‘wallaby island’.
The former Crimewatch and Desert Island Discs presenter and her partner, Nick Jones, have been given the green light by Loch Lomond and The Trossachs National Park Authority to push ahead with their plans for Inchconnachan.
They previously pledged to transform it into “a beautiful place for everyone to enjoy”.
The island, known as ‘wallaby island’, is located on the Bonnie Banks and is home to a colony of wild wallabies, which were introduced to the island in the 1940s by Fiona Gore, the Countess of Arran.
They still roam wild to this day – making it one of the only places outside Australia which has a healthy wallaby population.
As part of the plans, the couple will oversee the erection of a new lodge as short-term holiday accommodation, as well as a boathouse and shelter as warden’s accommodation.
There will also be a plant room and stores to replace the existing derelict lodge, boat shelter and outbuildings, new and temporary jetties, services, drainage, paths/ boardwalk, the demolition of existing structures/buildings and the removal of invasive/exotic species, as well as the natural regeneration of the site and wet woodland/ habitat diversity.
The former Desert Island Discs presenter and her businessman husband submitted the application in December 2021.
Ms Young and Mr Jones purchased the island in 2020, which included a derelict colonial-style timber bungalow dating from the 1920s, built especially for the tea merchant Admiral Sullivan.
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In confirming its decision, the Loch Lomond & The Trossachs National Park Authority added a number of conditions imposed as part of its approval.
They said: “The lodge hereby approved shall be used solely for short-term holiday use and not for permanent residential use.
“The lodge shall not be occupied by any one individual or group for a period exceeding 90 days in any one calendar year.
“A register of occupant’s details (names and dates of stay) shall be kept and shall be made available to the National Park Authority on request.”
Additionally, the boathouse can only be used for the purposes of managing the island, as opposed to further overnight accommodation.
Before any work can begin, however, a finalised version of the Inchconnachan Island Management Plan must be submitted and approved in writing by the planning authority.
The plans were met with both objections as well as messages of support after being lodged.
Woodland Trust Scotland objected to the plans, saying the building work would involve cutting down trees.
In January 2022, an online petition was launched which called on the Scottish Government to look in to concerns that the plans would eradicate the wallabies from the island. It was signed almost 103,000 times.
The new owners previously denied plans to remove them from the island.