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Scottish authorities approved plans by US President Donald Trump’s family business to build a second golf course in Aberdeenshire, despite campaigning by environmental activists.
The Aberdeen council on Friday released documents showing it granted full planning permission for the development, subject to some conditions, such as measures to minimize the risk of flooding at the site, located on Scotland’s northeast coast.
The 18-hole golf course, to be named MacLeod in honor of Trump’s mother, Mary Anne MacLeod, would be built alongside the original Trump International golf complex on its Menie Estate, north of Aberdeen, which opened in 2012.
Washington Post / Bloomberg
US President Donald Trump in front of the Turnberry Lighthouse on his golf course in Scotland in 2016.
Local district officials had already approved the plan for the second course in September. Friday’s decision came from Aberdeen’s largest council and is expected to be final.
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Ecologists have criticized the first Menie golf course for partially destroying the coastal sand dunes in the area, saying the second course could cause the dunes to erode further.
“The council sided with Trump International,” said Bob Ward of the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and Environment at the London School of Economics. “They accepted the economic case over the environmental one.”
The existing golf course and luxury hotel on the estate have not been profitable since they opened. Trump also owns another luxury golf resort, Turnberry, on the other side of Scotland.
