Donald Trump's plan for £750m Scottish golf resort put on hold
The billionaire property developer flew into Aberdeen on Monday on his latest luxury jet, a Boeing 757-200 fitted out with a master bedroom and five kitchens, to announce that his championship standard 18-hole golf course overlooking the North Sea would open for play in July next year.
Before touring the first completed holes, Trump said he had spent £50m to £60m of his own money carving the "amazing" course from the vast dunes, and would start taking advance bookings in 10 days. He hoped that Sir Sean Connery, one of the earliest backers of the resort, would open it for him.
"We have been inundated from New York and Scotland from people who want to come and play the course," he said. "Thousands of people have been calling: 'how can we play it?'"
But the tycoon said that the full scheme, a £750m complex featuring a luxury hotel, Trump Boulevard, a golf academy, a second course and timeshare apartments, had been bunkered by the recession.
Trump said "the world has crashed" since he first bought the Menie estate and dunes in 2005, provoking a long-running battle with local residents, councillors and environmental groups about his proposals, which has involved heavily altering the legally protected rare dunes.
As Trump flew in, it emerged that a cinema in Aberdeen, the Belmont, had decided to give a new, highly-critical documentary investigating the tycoon's conflicts with local residents, called You've Been Trumped, an extended run this weekend. This was due to "an amazing response" to a screening last Friday.
Trump has denounced the film as "a fraud".
He also brushed aside continuing conflicts with his neighbours, particularly David and Moira Milne, owners of a former coastguard station overlooking the new course, and Michael Forbes, the salmon fisherman whose land Trump once described as "disgusting".
Milne has been sent warning letters from Trump's lawyers threatening legal action in a dispute over boundary fences and demands to demolish a garage which Trump believes intrudes on his land.
Trump's local manager, Sarah Malone, claimed David Milne "has chosen to take an aggressive stance and if he moves his fence, there won't be an issue. And if he doesn't, we're looking at all the options available to us".
Andy Wightman, a land rights expert who has investigated the conflict between the Milnes and Trump, said the Milnes had proper title to land complete with a Ordnance Survey map record, which was legally registered with the Keeper of the Registers of Scotland.
"If Trump has a problem with boundaries, it should be taken up with the Keeper," Wightman said. "It is totally out of order for them to issue threats of legal action to demolish other people's property. I am dismayed that a Scottish law firm has been persuaded to follow through and issue such threats to people who simply wish to live in peace."
source : http://www.guardian.co.uk/
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