A £500 million plan to build the world's most expensive and most luxurious getaway in rural Perthshire for global billionaires is running into fierce opposition.

Property developer Malcolm James is about to apply for planning permission for an unusual hotel, housing and leisure complex on the south shores of Loch Rannoch.

As well as plush suites, houses on stilts and an underwater restaurant, the complex will include an upmarket shopping centre, golf course, concert hall, spa and private plastic surgery clinic. "It will be a super-luxury resort for the super-rich," James told the Sunday Herald.

"It will be by membership and invitation only so they will be able to make friends knowing that people aren't conning them," he added. "It will be hideously expensive."

But the plan has alarmed local residents and landowners, who fear it will wreck the area's tranquility and endanger its unique and protected wildlife. And they are preparing for a prolonged campaign of resistance.

James plans the development at the site of the old Rannoch boarding school on the Dall Estate, where he lives with his wife and six children. He bought the estate in 2003, and moved there from Cornwall.

He has been quietly developing ideas for his resort over the past four years. Consultations have taken place with the Forestry Commission, which owns adjacent land, and the government conservation agency, Scottish Natural Heritage.

In an interview with the Sunday Herald, James said he was "very close" to submitting a planning application to Perth and Kinross Council. He has also held a public meeting at the village hall in Kinloch Rannoch, and invited residents to his house to discuss his plans.

The resort will be the world's most palatial and most private playground for the international elite, he claimed. It will include a hotel with 100 sumptuous suites, which he said would outclass any other, earning at least six stars.

Up to 100 deluxe houses would be built, some on stilts so as not to damage the environment, James said. A 60ft tower, shaped like an ancient crannog, will be built in Loch Rannoch, incorporating an underwater restaurant and a series of executive apartments.

James has been in discussions with the Forestry Commission over leasing land for an 18-hole golf course. The commission has agreed in principle, as long as he can demonstrate public support.

"We will have a concert hall so that world famous acts like Christina Aguilera can fly in and entertain people," he said.

Helipads will be provided so guests can fly in from Edinburgh or Glasgow airports, James said. There will also be landing facilities for seaplanes, and a luxury train from London and Europe was under investigation.

Although James claimed the majority of local people backed his plans, this was disputed by residents. They described the reaction at the meetings James had held as "95% hostile".

The Loch Rannoch Conservation Association, representing more than 50 landowners, is worried. Pollution from fertilising the golf greens could endanger fish in the loch, including the rare arctic char, according to the association's secretary, Richard Legate.

"We're talking about a development that would dwarf the village, and there are bizarre aspects to it." The restaurant in the loch looked more like a power station cooling tower than a crannog, he argued.

Most members of Legate's management committee were opposed to the development, he said, because it threatened to destroy the natural peace and beauty of Loch Rannoch.

Residents also questioned whether Loch Rannoch, famed for the ferocity of its midges, would work as a getaway for the super-rich. But James insisted he had that covered. "Midges are very territorial," he said. "And we have a super anti-midge system that will deal with them."