Scotland Accused of Becoming ‘Golf Theme Park’
Amidst the furore which erupted following the decision last week to deny US property magnate, Donald Trump, the chance to ‘return to his ancestral roots’ by building his planned £1bn ($2.05bn) golf resort in Scotland, some in the industry are voicing concern over whether the link between golf and property development in the country has gone too far.
Councillors in north-east Scotland faced the narrowest of votes as the chair of the council’s strategic resources committee was forced to use his casting vote to throw out the scheme, insisting the risk to the local environment and wildlife was too high a price to pay. Local businesses and tourism bodies have strongly supported the scheme to build two championship courses, a 450-room luxury hotel, 950 timeshare properties, 500 homes and 36 golf villas on seaside links 12 miles north of Aberdeen, seeing the development as an opportunity to reduce the region’s dependence on the oil and gas industry. The leader of Aberdeenshire Council stated that she would call a special meeting of the full council to see whether the decision could be reversed, after being inundated by angry telephone calls and e-mails over the narrow decision, and Trump’s spokespeople reportedly received telephone calls within hours of the decision, offering the land in other areas of the UK mainland. However, the decision has been greeted with relief by many who feel that Scotland has been too welcoming to those hoping to take a shot at cashing in on the ever-popular sport. St Andrews in Fife, one of the most famous golf courses in the world, has become a magnet for real estate entrepreneurs from North America.
The game of golf caters especially well to the wealthiest strata of society, such that the majority of developers are aiming exclusively high, with apartments priced at up to £1.9m for a timeshare of 10 weeks a year. Several tycoons have built or are already in the late planning stages for constructing luxury golf resorts, combined with the increasingly popular ‘retirement community’, just one way in which golf courses and residential property are being spliced together in big mixed-use schemes across the Middle East, north Africa, the Mediterranean and elsewhere.
