A new £60 million public/private leisure and retail development, situated at the southern end of Loch Lomond in west Scotland, is set to open next spring.

Loch Lomond Shores will feature a castle-styled visitor centre with a top-floor viewing gallery, a National Park orientation and a 65,000 sq. ft gallery offering a range of shops and restaurants, all set among 100 acres of woodland and countryside.

The seven-storey visitor centre houses a multi-media show that takes its audience along the bottom of the loch to learn about its history, myths and legends and a film drama entitled Legend of Loch Lomond centring around the romance of the loch's history.

The glass-clad orientation centre marks the southern entry point to The Trossachs National Park, Scotland's first National Park and will be home to local tourist board offices and a team of park rangers who will lead guided tours and lectures.

Loch Lomond Trust, will take over the management of Loch Lomond Shores when it becomes operational and envisages that the development will become the centrepoint of Scottish tourism, and a catalyst for economic regeneration in the local area.

The site, which has been a derelict industrial site for the last 20 years, was taken over by Scottish Enterprise Dunbartonshire, part of Scottish Enterprise, which is the main economic development agency for Scotland. The agency, who have committed £12m to funding the project, aims to attract the seven million visitors who travel past the loch each year to stop in the area and generate and estimated £55m to the local economy.