AN END could be in sight to a chronic car parking shortage in Luss under newly-published plans.

The Luss Estates Company wants to convert a field next to the Loch Lomond Arms Hotel in the centre of the village into a 240-space car park.

This would include room for 231 cars, 12 of which would be for disabled cars, as well as space for nine camper vans and 10 lockable bicycle points.

The plans are contained in an application to the Loch Lomond and the Trossachs National Park Authority.

Residents in Luss have been campaigning for several years for measures to alleviate the parking situation in the village, where residential streets are clogged by hundreds of parked cars as visitors flock to the banks of Loch Lomond on sunny summer days.

READ MORE: Luss residents angry over parking plans

Argyll and Bute Council already operates a pay-and-display car parking facility in the centre of Luss, with space for 250 cars.

The council charges motorists 25p to use its car park for 15 minutes, with discounts available to drivers who purchase season tickets for three, six, nine and 12 months.

Luss Estates’ planning application does not indicate whether the landowner intends to charge for use of its car park if permission is granted.

A design statement by landscape designer Fiona Robertson in support of the application says: “The primary objective of removing visitor car parking from Luss village centre would be achieved by this proposal and provide a positive addition to the overall experience of those who wish to visit Luss.”

Luss Estates first offered to build a car park in the village in 2016, as part of a range of measures designed to prevent visitors using residential streets in the village.

Those proposals were developed in response to Argyll and Bute Council's own attempts to introduce traffic management measures in Luss – though the authority, to much criticism from residents, said it could not ban non-residents from driving, or parking, on public roads.

The council has since approved an attempt to tackle – at least partially – the parking problem in the village by removing signs on the northbound A82 directing motorists towards the southern entrance to the village.

READ MORE: Solution – of sorts – in sight for Luss parking headache

The design statement says that seating and picnic tables would be part of the plans, and the fence which flanks the footpath leading from the existing car park to the A82 would be removed.

It also states: “The landscape would integrate with the proposed landscape of Luss Village Green, planning permission for which has already been granted, and the existing landscape associated with the Loch Lomond Arms Hotel."

Park authority officials are expected to make a decision on the application by early June.