When Susie and John Munro bought their cottage 35 years ago they had a clear view of Girdle Ness lighthouse in Aberdeen 10 miles to the south and of the rugged, towering, dunes which became their children’s playground. But all they can see now is an earth wall, which was built by Donald Trump for “the world’s greatest golf course”, to hide their home from sight.
The berm, which reaches four metres in height and sits opposite the Munros’ front door, entirely blocks out the horizon and view of the sea. A hefty locked gate blocks the public road they once used to reach the beach. In heavy rain, they say, the road now floods. At times, they say Trump’s security staff sit in 4x4 vehicles watching their movements.
“He has just ruined it for us here. He has just hemmed us in,” Susie Munro said. “He just did what he pleased and the council just turned a blind eye.” And in a reference to his presidential campaign pledge to deal with immigration, she says quietly: “Mr Trump likes his walls.”
It is that divisive campaign on immigration, which has catapulted the businessman and TV personality to presumptive Republican nominee for the White House, that will add even greater interest to Trump’s latest visit to Scotland.
He touches down at Prestwick on Thursday before unveiling his second Scottish golf course at Turnberry in Ayrshire the following day.When he flies to Aberdeen on Saturday and heads north up the coast to Balmedie, the Munros will be displaying a Mexican flag in a symbolic protest at his pledge in the US presidential race to wall off Mexico.
In parallel with protests planned by anti-racist campaigners at Turnberry on Friday, David and Moira Milne are already flying a Mexican flag from the roof of their home, a former coastguard station overlooking Trump’s clubhouse.
So too is Michael Forbes, the obstinate quarryman who became Trump’s most famous opponent after the property magnate described him as a “disgrace” for refusing to sell to him his “pigsty of a home” which sits in the middle of the Trump estate.
The Guardian has learned that Trump’s neighbours now face fresh conflicts with the developer. Trump is a step closer to winning official approval for a highly-profitable property development of 850 private homes and 1,900 “leisure accommodation units” on the estate, despite a series of conflicts with the local council. In return he is expected to spend up to £15m building homes for residents, and, possibly, a new school.
In a breakthrough for Trump, draft versions of Aberdeenshire’s next local development plan – the council’s planning blueprint for the next five years, include all the key features of his original £1bn resort plan. Only a fraction of that has yet been built.
The latest company accounts for Trump International Golf Course Scotland (TIGCS) showed in 2014 it was £38.5m in debt – nearly all of which was owed to Trump, and that it was losing well over £1m a year.
Trump claimed in 2008 that his planned resort would employ 1,200 people; it currently employs 95, many of whom will be seasonal. The course is closed over the winter, thanks to the harsh weather. His original masterplan included two championship golf courses, with a five-star hotel, tower blocks of timeshare apartments, luxury villas, equestrian and tennis complexes, a golfing academy, and shopping village strung along a sweeping avenue called Trump Boulevard.
Despite the bitter opposition of all Scotland’s environment agencies and charities, Scottish government ministers, who were backed by local business and council leaders, decided the scheme was of national importance. In November 2008 they ruled that this allowed Trump to bulldoze through a third of the Foveran dunes complex, a legally protected site of special scientific interest (SSSI), and breach the council’s structural plans, which defined Menie as green belt land.
In striking contrast to the £200m Trump claims to have invested in lavishly upgrading the Turnberry course and hotel only two years after buying it, he has spent only £38.5m so far in Aberdeenshire, building an 18-hole course, a single-storey clubhouse and converting the Menie estate’s manor house into a 19-bedroom boutique hotel.
Local residents have been told the planned five-storey, five-star, hotel on the site has been dropped. Trump is now focusing instead on extending the house, now named after his mother Mary MacLeod, with a 400-capacity ballroom and six new bedrooms.
Martin Ford, a Scottish Green party councillor, whose casting vote on Aberdeenshire’s planning committee against the resort in 2007 forced Trump to appeal to the Scottish government, said: “From the start, Mr Trump has in turn either bullied or ignored the Scottish planning system. The promised investment in the large hotel and resort elements has not materialised, nor the jobs. The north-east has got the worst of all possible worlds. The amazing dune system at Menie has been lost to development, the jobs and economic benefits promised have not materialised.”
Trump’s reputation in Scotland has already been badly damaged by a feud with his key allies in north-east Scotland, chiefly the former first minister Alex Salmond, once his most influential supporter, over a windfarm two miles away from Trump’s Aberdeenshire resort which the region’s business and political leaders support but which Trump hates. He has fought that up to the UK supreme court, losing at every stage.
Salmond was among the signatories of a petition urging the UK government to ban Trump from entry to the UK after his outburst on Mexican migrants last year. Ford believes US voters need to learn from Scotland’s experience. “The man appears to treat the whole of life as a publicity stunt,” Ford said. “He appears to have no impulse control. I now see a campaign in the US, which is again characterised by ridiculous assertions and ridiculous promises. And again they’re being believed by so many people. Our experience is that they shouldn’t be believed.”
But Trump’s investment in Aberdeenshire could yet pay off. Due to be approved later this year, the council’s draft development plan will formally recognise the planning approval Trump won in 2008, designating the coastal dunes, farmland and woods he owns as set aside for his original masterplan. That makes it far easier for Trump to build his new homes and timeshare complex – provided he can raise the money.
But Aberdeenshire council has told the Guardian that when he does seek permission for the new houses and holiday flats, the council will expect him to spend up to £15m on new affordable homes and potentially a new school in the nearest village, Balmedie.
Those costs were tied to Trump’s original 2008 plan under a legally binding section 75 agreement. If his next planning application is different, the council says it will insist on a new binding commitment to build affordable homes, a spokesman said. “Aberdeenshire council has advised the agents acting on behalf of TIGCS that affordable housing would be required as part of any new proposal,” he said.
Trump’s critics believe this demand is likely to spark off a further series of conflicts with the tycoon. There have already been fresh disputes over Trump’s refusal to uphold another key part of the section 75 agreement from 2008, to have an expert group of environmentalists advise him on the conservation of rare and protected plant and animal species affected by the development.
The Menie Environmental Monitoring Advisory Group included Scottish Natural Heritage (SNH) and the Scottish Environmental Protection Agency (Sepa) but it last met in January 2013. Tump’s officials have now confirmed that the advisory group has “fulfilled its purpose” and been closed down.
Council records also show TIGCS has meanwhile been building without first getting planning approval facilities including the overhaul and alterations of Menie House to create the hotel; new entrance walls and distinctive Trump-branded black and gold entrance signs on the A90 main road; two 25-metre-high flagpoles; a stone golf bag store; a “soakaway” for sewage runoff; lighting and earthworks for building the clubhouse carpark.
In nearly all these cases the council gave Trump retrospective planning permission. In a rare case where council officials rejected an application, Trump was ordered to remove one 25-metre high flag pole, which towers over the dunes and was erected without approval at the course’s club house. Its removal is now the subject of an appeal.
Trump’s organisation is adamant that its investment has been worthwhile, attracting “tens of thousands of golfers from around the globe to the north-east of Scotland”. It says: “It plays a vital part in the region’s golf, leisure and tourism industry, and with the drastic downturn in the oil industry, Mr Trump’s investment in the sector has never been more important.”
“This property is a long-term investment project,” his spokeswoman said. “There are many more phases to come, including further luxury accommodation, a residential village, second golf course, banqueting facilities and other high-end leisure amenities.”
James Bream, a research and policy director for Aberdeenshire tourism board, believes the opening of the first course in 2012 has increased tourism and given north-east Scotland a far higher-profile in the golfing world, helping its economy spread beyond a reliance on North Sea oil. “We think this type and quality of development is very important,” Bream said.
That was probably a factor in the decision to build a new £80m course at Ury near Stonehaven, designed by Jack Nicklaus. Hoteliers appear significant fans of Trump’s investment. “As a golfer, it’s incredible,” Bream said. “It’s a fantastic first-class golf experience. We’ve plenty of these in Scotland but to have one in the north-east of Scotland is something to be proud of.”
Vic Henderson, 87, a retired groundsman who worked for the previous owner of the Menie estates and lives in a terraced cottage overlooking the course, has a framed thank-you letter from Trump on his wall: Henderson wrote to a local paper defending the resort in 2007. “When I first came here, there was just 40 acres of windblown sand between me and the sea,” Henderson said. “It’s an absolutely wonderful course. It’s tremendous and, as for the carry-on and people from away down south saying it would disturb the wildlife, there’s more wildlife than ever. It’s good.”
