Since Donald Trump and the Birthers are everywhere today, I wonder if Alex Salmond winces at the memory of being described by Trump as “an amazing man”? I hope so. For Salmond’s role in the saga of Trump’s plans to build a golf course and, just as importantly, hundreds of “villas” on one of the more spectacular pieces of Aberdeenshire coastline was not one of the SNP ministry’s finer moments.
To recap, Aberdeenshire council rejected Trump’s application to build two golf courses, a hotel and his houses on the Menie Estate (pictured above). The Scottish government, as it is wont* to do, called in the application and to precisely no-one’s surprise over-ruled the council and gave Trump permission to build the “greatest golf course in the world”. It is, supposedly, a £750m development and the government was evidently enthused by the project’s claimed potential and, let us be blunt, by the celebrity behind it. That’s certainly how Trump chose to see it: “I got it built because they wanted Trump. If my name was anything else than Donald Trump, zero chance. Zero.”
A parliamentary enquiry gave Salmond a rap across the knuckles but no more than that. Of rather greater concern than the appearance of political interference or impropriety (of which there may well have been none) was the longstanding concern – covered here and here – that the Trump organisation would use compulsory purchase orders to evict four households who opposed his plans but had the misfortune to find their land claimed by “The Donald’s” increasingly-expansive claims for more land. (He has 1400 acres for his course and houses). That danger is now said to be passed but, like Michael Forbes** and the others, I’ll wait and see before believing anything the Trump organisation says.
Meanwhile, Trump is objecting to a neighbour’s plans for dog kennels and a cattery on a property neighbouring his own development. Apparently he wants a “noise assessment” conducted and complains that “increased traffic” might also cause problems. Hilarious, really.
It’s hard not to think that money and celebrity trumped local decision-making. Equally, the economic benefits of this development – which tramples over a Site of Special Scientific Interest, incidentally – must be thought moot at best. If there’s one thing Scotland is not short of it’s world-class golf courses. Unless Trump’s project and its houses bring people to Scotland who would not have come anyway it’s likely that the development will only consume money that would most probably have been spent at other Scottish golf courses. Perhaps there’ll be a small local benefit – though, typically and despite the appearance of promises to the contrary, many of the contractors are from outside Scotland – but on a national scale the benefits seem likely to be tiny, if they exist at all.
But Trump is Trump and he’s rich and famous and if he threatened to take his develpment elsewhere then doubtless this helped concentrate minister’s minds, even though the local council had decided, rightly or not, they could manage without Mr Trump in their backyard.
Trump’s mother was born in Stornoway, of course, “raising doubts” about whether he is eligible to become President of the United States of America…
*The government’s mania for approving wind farms on every hillside is another example. Very occasionally a local council’s decision to reject yet another wind famr application is sustained; much more frequently the plans are approves and Edinburgh mocks the very notion of local democracy and, indeed, accountability.
**Mrs Forbes took an admirably defiant view at the time: ‘It’s an absolute disgrace.People can’t get permission to build decent homes for their family, but he waltzes in and gets whatever he wants. It’s going to have a massive impact on our lives, but we’ll never move. We wouldn’t give him the satisfaction.”
Comments