DONALD Trump has spent just £25 million on his golf development in Scotland, despite having hailed it as a £1 billion project, it has been claimed.
Five years after winning Scottish Government approval for the Menie Estate in Aberdeenshire, a TV programme due to air tonight alleges the Menie Estate development has also only delivered 200 jobs out of the 6000 new posts promised by the Trump Organisation.
The Panorama programme also claims that since the estate was bought by the celebrity businessman for £7m, the paper value of the land has risen to an estimated £100m, in part due to outline planning consents granted for the building of 500 new homes on part of it.
Jed Griffiths, former head of Royal Town & Country Planning Association, tells the programme valuing Mr Trump's land at £100m was "a conservative estimate in my view". When asked if Scotland or Mr Trump had benefited most from the deal, Mr Griffiths replied: "Trump. No question."
However, a spokesman for the Trump Organisation described the programme's conclusions as misleading.
The broadcast will feature an interview with First Minister Alex Salmond,with a series of questions about his involvement in the Trump project.
During the interview, Mr Salmond said: "I'm disappointed the plans haven't gone ahead as originally envisaged. I hope they will do." However, he said he had not taken part in the decision-making process.
While the Trump Organisation claims it has spent in excess of £67m at the Menie Estate, Panorama says the most recent accounts submitted show just £25m has been spent so far.
While the golf course is open, construction of a hotel and homes planned for the rest of the site is stalled and will not resume because of plans for 11 offshore wind turbines in full view of the course, Mr Trump said.
He told Panorama Mr Salmond had promised him they would never be built. But Mr Salmond said Mr Trump was simply wrong.
Panorama is on BBC One tonight at 8.30pm.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article