U.S. President Donald Trump "could have faced legal action for repeatedly flouting his promises" for his inaugural Scottish golf resort, had local authority planning officers "applied stricter conditions to the controversial multimillion pound development," a planning expert said, according to Martyn McLaughlin of the SCOTSMAN. William Walton, a barrister, academic, and town planner, said that the incomplete Trump Int'l Golf Links development on Scotland’s north east coast was an example of a "great planning disaster." He also accused the Scottish Government and Aberdeenshire Council of "significant professional failings" in how they dealt with the application. A "decade on from the government’s contentious decision" to approve Trump’s plans, Walton "has called for sweeping changes to the planning system, including bolstering the protection" afforded to sites of special scientific interest, such as the "fragile" Foveran Links, part of which was "built on to make way" for the Trump Int'l Golf Links. It comes as the Trump Organization is trying to secure approval for "what it describes as the Trump Estate on its land in Aberdeenshire." The mixed-use development would include 500 private homes and 50 "so-called hotel cottages." In a "scathing analysis of the development," due to be published in Oslo Law Review, Walton explained, "It is probably because it is the environment, and not the taxpayer, that has paid that the Trump debacle has not resulted in much greater political fallout" (SCOTSMAN, 12/26).
