Trump Mk II: now his business rival plans golf course which threatens precious Scottish sand dunes
BY ROB EDWARDS
AMAJOR row is brewing over plans by a US millionaire to build a golf course on a precious wildlife site in northeast Scotland – but it’s not Donald Trump this time ... it’s his business rival.
Mike Keiser, a businessman behind some of the most prized golf courses in the world, wants to build one at Coul links, on the coast north of the Dornoch Firth near the village of Embo.
In so doing he will trash a network of sand dunes treasured for birds, insects and plants just as Trump destroyed the dunes at Menie round the Aberdeenshire coast, experts say.
Conservation and community groups are gearing up for another battle with a powerful American. “It’s the Trump golf fiasco all over again,” said one.
Keiser has teamed up with a US banker and entrepreneur, Todd Warnock, who already owns property in Dornoch, to develop Coul links.
They have submitted an application notice to Highland Council and are now preparing to apply for detailed planning permission. The course will attract 20,000 visitors a year and put more than £6 million a year into the Highland economy, they say.
But it is facing angry opposition. Dr Tom Dargie, a dune expert commissioned but then ignored by Trump at Menie, says Keiser’s proposal will be more damaging.
He estimates that a golf course at Coul will destroy 48 hectares of the Loch Fleet sand dune Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI). This is more than double the Trump’s course.
Coul is also part of a special protection area for birds such as teal, wigeon, plovers, and terns. It is home to an array of rare moths, ants and flies, including Fonseca’s seed fly which only lives on that stretch of coast.
Jonathan Hughes, chief executive of the Scottish Wildlife Trust, lived and worked at Coul in the 1990s. “Like Trump, Keiser has a track record of getting his own way whatever it takes and area damaged by Top, expert Dr Tom Dargie says a golf course at Coul will destroy 48 hectares of the Loch Fleet sand dune. Above, Donald Trump and Mike Keiser like Trump he seems to think protected area laws can be torn up for his own private financial gain,” he told the Sunday Herald. “Allowing another sand dune SSSI to go the way of the benighted Trump development at Menie would be an unforgivable and tragic loss of a protected area.”
Craig Macadam from insect conservation group Buglife said: “A golf course can be sited anywhere, but many of the species at Coul are completely reliant on these fragile habitats.
Government wildlife agency Scottish Natural Heritage is awaiting further studies before deciding its stance. Conservationists expect it to object.
A spokesman for the developers’ agent, the property company JLL, stressed that plans were still at an early stage. Keiser’s designers were “world-renowned experts in golf course design and construction methods which seek to enhance and preserve the natural environment”, he said.
“We have been in extensive dialogue with Highland Council, Scottish Natural Heritage and other statutory consultees for a considerable period to agree the scope and requirements of numerous environmental studies which will be used to inform the development of the proposals and to undertake an environmental impact assessment.
“The project team will continue to consult widely on the proposals and once the detailed design is developed and finalised the proposals will be shared with all relevant interests.”