PLANS for a holiday park in Ardrossan featuring hundreds of tourist caravans have been thrown into doubt days after being revealed to the public – after an alleged false claim over land ownership was included in the application.

Bothwell Land and Development Ltd submitted proposals for the Ardrossan Eco Village Park to North Ayrshire Council recently, as reported in last week’s Herald, with the 27-acre site of the former Montfode oil storage depot off the A78 earmarked for the major development.

But a local resident who owns a parcel of land where a livery yard is currently situated across from the site - which would be needed to widen the access road for the development - has claimed their ground does not belong to the company and “will not be sold for any amount of money”.

The resident, who purchased the land in 2016 but wished to remain anonymous, told the Herald: “We received letters from the council at the end of March, so then we went onto the council website to look at all the plans and documents.

“We found out that the applicant has declared they own all the land, which they do up at the Shell site.

“But they also said they owned the fields from the A78 up on the right-hand side to the old castle ruins, which they don’t, because we do.

“In order to get potentially 228 caravans and the amount of people that would involve and their vehicles, they would have to more than double the width of the road and the only way that they can do that is to use the fields that we own.

“We have never been approached, we’ve never been asked anything about it, the only way we found out was when the council told us, and we would never sell it anyway.

“We bought it for the reason it’s being used.

“I spoke to the planning officer dealing with the case and they confirmed the applicant did claim they own this land.

“This is an outfit that’s putting out misinformation and obviously we were shocked to find out that our land was going to be built on.”

Stating that the proposal is a “good idea - in the right place”, the disgruntled landowner hit out at the “cloak and dagger” approach from the company and said the lack of consultation or communication has left them feeling “like we don’t matter”.

They said: “The reason we bought it was just to keep a little bit of greenbelt land.

“The last thing that we want is 228 barbecues going right next to all the horses.

“I just don’t know how they thought they were going to get away with it.

“In one of the documents they state that they own all the land - how can that be a mistake? They know that they can’t own that land. It’s on the other side of the road, it doesn’t belong to them.”

They added: “They [developers] want to widen the road and have passing places because there’s going to be an awful lot of traffic going up there, potentially hundreds of vehicles, and we’re not going to be able to get out of our own properties.

“The land will not be sold for any amount of money.

“Our horses are getting less and less land and we can’t afford to give anything away.

“Without the access road it’s just not going to happen.

“Don’t get me wrong, the idea in principle is fine in the right place and given all the correct information, but I know from walking around the site I wouldn’t want to be holidaying up there anyway because you can smell oil.

“I think it would make a good windfarm because it’s really high up and on a windy day it’ll blow you to another country.”

When contacted about this alleged issue, a North Ayrshire Council spokesperson said: “The applicant has been notified that it is alleged that not all the land in their planning application belongs to them and have notified them of the options available moving forward.

“If there is land which is not within control of the applicants included within the red line boundary of a Planning Application site, they are required to give notice to all land owners at least 21 days in advance of submitting the Planning application.

“They could withdraw the current application and carry out the notification process highlighted above prior to re-submitting the application. If they choose not to withdraw the application it would not be supported by the Council if it is established that there is incorrect information included in the application form.”