A NEW war of words erupted yesterday between Donald Trump's business empire and the three councillors leading the local opposition to the tycoon's £1 billion golf resort development in Aberdeenshire.
The row broke out after the councillors claimed the entrepreneur's plan to build 500 luxury homes to help finance the project at the Menie estate should be thrown out because of newly revised Scottish Government planning policies.
The three Libera
l Democrat councillors – Martin Ford, the former convener of Aberdeenshire Council's planning authority, and colleagues Paul Johnston and Debra Storr – appeared together at the Menie estate inquiry to oppose the tycoon's ambitious development plans.
They now claim in a letter to the inquiry reporters that new planning policy guidelines, published by the Scottish Government after the inquiry ended, mean that the housing element of the Menie resort near Balmedie should be rejected.
But last night George Sorial, the Trump Organisation executive in charge of the Menie development, rounded on the three and claimed their continued opposition to the plan "smacked of desperation".
Earlier Mr Ford said that the new guidelines – the Scottish Planning Policy 3 Planning for Homes – advocated the development of sustainable mixed communities, and that decisions on where new housing allocations were located should be taken through the development plan system.
He said: "On the basis of newly published Scottish Government planning policy, the housing element of the Menie planning application should be refused. Contrary to what is advocated in SPP3, the 500 open market houses proposed at Menie do not meet any definition of a sustainable mixed community. And, of course, the proposal continues to be entirely outwith the development plan."
He was backed by Mr Johnston, who recently claimed Mr Trump was offered a £5 million land-deal "sweetener" by Aberdeenshire Council.
Mr Johnston, referring to the affordable housing element of the Trump plan, said: "The applicants said they were directed by the council to a site supposedly within Balmedie. While this is not only bad value for the taxpayer, it is also clearly against SPP3, which the minister should take into account.
"Allowing for 500 houses was not right in the first place, and the subsequent deal on another site further contradicts the new government housing policy."
Mr Sorial hit back, saying: "Repetition of the same old messages by these councillors is becoming tedious and, frankly, if I was the Reporter I would take exception to their tactics, which smack of desperation."
The full article contains 413 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
