Fresh blow for Trump’s Scottish golf resort

The long-running saga of Donald Trump's attempt to build a £1bn golf course - plus 950 flats, 36 villas and a 450-room hotel - on a previously undeveloped beauty spot north of Aberdeen took a fresh turn this morning when he flew in to check on progress.

The American tycoon's arrival was overshadowed by news that the pressure group Tripping Up Trump (TUT) have used a technique pioneered by opponents to Heathrow's third runway in order to block his plans at Menie.
 
TUT's spokesman, Martin Glegg, said the group had bought an acre of land Trump needs for his development from farmer Michael Forbes (above, right). The group are now in the process of selling off tiny parcels of that land to members of the public who don't want to see the resort built.
 
They hope the extra bureaucracy generated by dealing with multiple owners will stop, or at least slow down, Trump's attempt to get the land by compulsory purchase. "It won't just be a few local families Trump would have to take to court to compulsorily purchase," said Glegg, "it will now be hundreds of others."
 
The eccentrically-coiffed billionaire was holding a press conference in Aberdeen this morning, with his son Donald Jr at his side. A spokesman for the Trump organisation told the BBC they were not worried by TUT's action – and said it would have no impact on the development.
 
Trump, whose mother was Scottish and who is a keen golfer, bought the Menie estate north of Aberdeen in 2006. His development plans were controversial because the site is one of unsurpassed natural beauty - and the golf course encroaches on part of an SSSI, a designated Site of Special Scientific Interest.
 
The Menie dunes form part of the fifth largest – and least disturbed – sand dune system in the UK, and are a haven for birds. Trump's plans involve stabilising the dunes – part of their unique scientific interest is that they are mobile.
 
Trump was refused planning permission for his development in 2007 by the local planning committee, but that ruling was overturned by the Scottish Government in 2008, when finance secretary John Swinney said there was "a significant economic and social benefit" associated with the resort. The councillor, Martin Ford, whose casting vote had rejected the Trump plan, was duly fired.
 
But the story did not end there. Opponents said the golf course itself was a smokescreen for Trump's real focus: a property-development scheme. His talk of a world-class golf course, and of his love of Scotland – he even visited the cottage in which his mother grew up, with the world's media in tow – were designed to flatter the Scottish authorities into giving planning permission, they said.
 
And from the outset, several householders who own plots of land in the area have said they would not sell up to Trump. Chief among these was Michael Forbes, a salmon-netter and smallholder who lives with his wife and elderly mother just behind the dunes.
 
Forbes's resistance drew comparisons to the film Local Hero, with Forbes as the David standing up to Trump's Goliath, and led to worldwide media interest. The farmer was even photographed in his kilt, waving a huge saltire (Scottish flag), by Vanity Fair magazine.
 
However, the tycoon, who presents the US version of The Apprentice, said he didn't need Forbes's land in any case – and pressed on with his plans. Then, last summer, before work had begun, he changed his mind – telling the local council he needed to build on Forbes's farm, and several other properties, and asking for compulsory purchase orders to be issued.
 
It is this request which has re-galvanised the TUT campaign to stop the development. Speaking last night, Michael Forbes – described by Trump as a "village idiot" - said: "Tripping Up Trump now owns a piece of my land in an effort to help protect my family and the other families worried by the threat of compulsory purchase." ·