RESIDENTS in Auchenmalg are fighting to protect otter habitats against a glamping development.
Planning permission is being sought for a proposed glamping site near the Auchenmalg burn. It would see a 15-metre-long prefabricated hut and a shipping container, along with external lights and a car park within a two metres of the stream.
Otters regularly use the area of land as they travel from the burn to the sea in order to seek fish.
Objectors to the plans have created the Save Auchenmalg Otters group to campaign to ensure the continued survival of the Scottish sea otters’ feeding areas.
The group have pointed out to the planning department at Dumfries and Galloway Council that otters in Scotland are a protected species and that the development of the site would destroy the otters’ home and their ability to reach the sea to fish.
A spokesperson for the group said: “Placing a building – in which tourists may stay along with their dogs – a car park, a shipping container, and lights alongside the burn would so disturb the otters’ natural environment that they would be driven from the area or perish through lack of food.
“The land in question is an unstable shingle bank that regularly floods and is struck frequently by waves during storms. As such, it is a totally unsuitable site for a glamping site.”
Auchenmalg resident, Dr Ed Blissett, added: “This plan, if allowed, would be an act of environmental vandalism, destroying forever an area that is used not only by the otters but other endangered species.”
- Photo by Faith Hill
