Tim Farrand and Peter Woodifield Edinburgh
The Scottish government had enticed Donald Trump into investing in a golf resort by suggesting that an offshore wind farm that he opposed was unlikely to go ahead, the celebrity New York property mogul said yesterday.
Trump told legislators in Edinburgh that he had received “assurances” from First Minister Alex Salmond and his predecessor, Jack McConnell, over the turbine development.
The government “lured” him into investing “tens of millions of pounds” on the site at Balmedie, north of Aberdeen, and “led him to believe” that the farm would not proceed, Trump said.
He was giving evidence to a Scottish parliamentary committee. Trump is trying to derail a proposed £230 million (R3 billion) experimental wind farm due to be built within sight of a golf course he plans to open in July.
Salmond aims to make Scotland the hub of European wind power as part of a strategy to generate the equivalent of all of the country’s current electricity consumption from renewable sources by 2020.
He said last week that energy policy should be decided by elected politicians rather than Trump.
“Frankly, I don’t think 11 turbines offshore is a difficult proposition for most people to accept,” Salmond said on Wednesday last week.
The European Offshore Wind Deployment Centre, a venture between Vattenfall, Technip and Aberdeen Renewable Energy Group, applied in August last year for planning consent to build 11 next-generation offshore wind turbines in Aberdeen Bay.
The turbines are 195m high to the tip of the blade and will be 2.4km out at sea, according to David Rodger, a spokesman for the venture.
Trump identified his site as a potential £750m golf resort in 2005 and battled for almost three years to gain consent to build two courses, and short-term rental apartments.
Trump said Scotland’s plans to increase the number of wind farms would mean that the country would lose tourists to Ireland. – Bloomberg