MSPs will take evidence today on calls for a full public inquiry into the authorities' handling of Donald Trump's golf resort in Aberdeenshire.
The Public Petitions Committee will hear from Menie resident David Milne whose petition for an inquiry has been signed by 19,000 people.
Mr Milne wants MSPs to urge the Scottish Government to examine the way local government, Scottish ministers and other relevant public bodies conducted themselves during their dealings with the Trump Organisation. Mr Trump's £750 million luxury golf and housing resort on the Menie estate in Aberdeenshire was approved in 2008, and finally opened last summer.
Mr Milne said: "I'm grateful to the thousands and thousands of members of the public who have supported our call for a full inquiry into the Trump fiasco, which I believe is the only way to get to the bottom of this murky affair, to establish the truth and to ensure nothing like this ever happens again.
"Mr Trump has nothing to fear. We are not seeking to overturn his planning applications, merely to find out exactly what went on behind the scenes in national and local government, and to ensure the whole story gets told and lessons learned.
"A series of systematic failures abandoned local residents to the mercies of a rapacious developer and left our irreplaceable local environment unprotected."
The inquiry would cover former first minister Jack McConnell's Labour-led Scottish Executive, Alex Salmond's SNP Government and Aberdeenshire Council which, at the time, was controlled by the Liberal Democrats.
Mr Trump's planning application was initially rejected by a local authority committee but was then controversially called in by the Scottish Government.
Mr Salmond became local MSP for the area in 2007. The plan was subsequently rubber-stamped by the council, then approved by Finance Secretary John Swinney in November 2008.
A planning inquiry and a Holyrood committee inquiry have already taken place.
Independent Aberdeenshire councillor Paul Johnstone will give evidence to the committee today.
He said: "There were many things covered in the planning inquiry and the parliamentary committee's inquiry. But they had limitations.
"Without an inquiry we will live with an appalling reputation that we are easily manipulated and with the hint, however unfairly, that decisions can be bought."
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