Controversial beginning for ‘world’s greatest golf course’

Today’s news comes more than 12 years after it emerged Donald Trump was in talks to create a golf course in Aberdeenshire.

The billionaire, whose mother, Mary MacLeod, was born in Stornoway, revealed in March 2006 that he had set his sights on creating the links at Menie Estate.

However, the dunes at the stretch had been graded as a “site of special scientific interest” and environmental groups have criticised the venture.

The council received a planning application in early 2007, and planning officers recommended its approval in September of that year. But two months later, the scheme was knocked back by Aberdeenshire Council’s infrastructure committee on the casting vote of chairman Martin Ford.

Less than a week later, the Scottish Government called in the application.

In November 2008, the plans were approved at Holyrood and a delighted Mr Trump pledged to create the “world’s greatest golf course” in the north-east.

The 18-hole MacLeod Course was opened in July 2012, as Mr Trump was piped on to the green before cutting a ribbon and teeing off with golfing legend Colin Montgomerie.

The estate’s MacLeod House and Lodge Hotel opened in winter 2013, and was granted five-star status by Visit Scotland the following year, while a clubhouse followed in May 2015.

In an interview with the Press and Journal last year, Eric Trump claimed that the “huge plans” for the site would help the region bounce back from the oil and gas downturn.