Campers face £500 fines for breaking Loch Lomond camping ban

Anyone pitching a tent or even sleeping in vehicles overnight outside designated campsites on the east shore of Loch Lomond will face a 500 fine, if proposals to bring in a new bylaw are successful.

Behind the plans is the Loch Lomond and The Trossachs National Park Authority, which said the measures were necessary because of large groups of young people flocking to the area during the summer and wreaking havoc.

The bylaw would cover nine square miles stretching along the banks of the loch from north of Rowadennan to Drymen.

During an average August, as many as 500 vehicles and tents set up camp in the area, according to the authority.

Unruly visitors regularly leave piles of rubbish, tents and even burned-out vehicles. Groups also bring chainsaws and cut down swathes of trees for firewood, the authority said.

If the national park authority is successful, it will be the first time a provision to use a bylaw under the Land Reform (Scotland) Act 2003 to ban wild camping will have been implemented.

Groups that campaigned to bring in the "right to roam" legislation, which enshrined in law freedom of access across Scotland, have supported the bid, saying the situation at east Loch Lomond had become "extreme". However, they warned against regular use of the bylaw.

Bridget Jones, visitor experience manager, added that the problems were largely caused by "young male groups, predominantly from the Central Belt, such as Glasgow, aged between 19 and 24", who came for a "party".

"We have reached a point where it has got out of hand and we have to do something," she said. "You really have to see the damage to believe it. The number of trees that have been cut down by chainsaws is just crazy.

"Local residents are finding it impossible to live there during the summer, visitors are finding it impossible and a local walking business has even stopped taking people on that side of the loch during the summer."

The national park authority has the power to bring in the bylaw, if Scottish ministers give approval.

It could be implemented by April 2011, depending on the results of a 12-week consultation launched yesterday.

Dave Morris, director of Ramblers Scotland, supported the move.

"We think this is a reasonable measure to take if the area is limited and just confined to the pressure points that exist on the east coast," he said.

"The situation with this area is extreme. There are not many other areas where people are setting fire to caravans and dropping huge amounts of litter. It's an urban problem that has been transferred into the countryside."

However, he emphasised that the rest of the national park must remain free to use for wild camping.

Helen Webster, a founder of walkers website Walkhighlands, also favoured the move.

"I have been in that area and seen discarded rubbish, not just from weekend campers but from people doing the West Highland Way," she said.

"I would be more concerned if it became a more general policy and if they started using it as a sledgehammer to crack a nut."