Trump pledges to fight wind farm plan despite firm’s £300m investment

DONALD Trump has vowed to continue fighting an offshore wind farm development despite a £300 million commitment from a Swedish company to the construction project.

The US presidential candidate lost a Supreme Court bid to halt the development after complaining it would spoil the view from his golf resort at the Menie estate on the Aberdeenshire coast.

Swedish firm Vattenfall said its team and contractors will now focus on building the 11-turbine Aberdeen Offshore Wind Farm project safely and “help establish the north-east as an international centre for offshore wind innovation”.

Onshore construction near Blackdog, Aberdeenshire, will start later this year and offshore work will begin in late 2017.

The wind farm is scheduled to generate power in spring 2018 and operate for 20 years or more.

A spokeswoman for the Trump Organisation said that a number of planning conditions associated with the project had yet to be “purified” and that the New York-based business giant would be lodging formal objections with Marine Scotland.

She added: “The project can’t proceed until the conditions are satisfied and we will also pursue additional remedies before the Euro- pean courts as necessary. The turbines are in a shipping lane, will kill birds and interfere with both military and civilian radar.”

Vattenfall said yesterday it is now the sole owner of Aberdeen Offshore Wind Farm Limited, the company behind the EOWDC, after acquiring the Aberdeen Renewable Energy Group’s 25 per cent share.

Gunnar Groebler, senior vice president and head of business area wind at Vattenfall, said: “Now the Vattenfall team and our contractors will focus on building the project safely and help establish the north-east of Scotland as an international centre for offshore wind innovation.

“Vattenfall’s green light for the EOWDC underlines our long-term ambition to grow our wind-power capacity, including in the UK.”

Paul Wheelhouse, Minister for Business, Innovation and Energy, said: “This is great news for the industry.

“This project will keep our nation at the forefront of innovation by allowing energy companies to identify new ways to reduce operating costs.

“We’re working hard to ensure offshore wind projects can help generate the low carbon electricity supply Scotland needs and the associated high-quality engineering jobs Scotland wants.”