ABERDEEN, Scotland (AFP) — US tycoon Donald Trump is used to getting his own way. But his grand plans for a mega golf complex in some prime Scottish dunes have hit a bunker, and he is struggling to get back on course.
Environmental campaigners and a local farmer are cautiously optimistic after making Trump think again over the plans for a luxury golf resort looking out onto the North Sea up the coast from Aberdeen.
"The Trump people came to offer me some money. I said no. He said, 'Everybody has a price.' I said, 'No, it's not for sale'," says 55-year-old Michael Forbes -- a David against Trump's Goliath.
Forbes has rejected all offers to sell up and move out of his windswept plot of land, which lies in the middle of the 6,000-hectare (15,000-acre) site targetted by Trump for his one-billion-pound (1.3-billion-euro, two-billion-dollar) project.
For the last 40 years Forbes has fished for salmon along this stretch of coastline.
"I don't know where else I can go. It's my home, it's all I know," says the weather-beaten Scot, whose 83-year-old mother Molly lives in a mobile home dubbed "Paradise" next to his own home.
"I never go on holidays, what's the point of going on holidays? I have all I need here," he told AFP in his lilting Scottish burr.
Trump, a real estate tycoon who has already bought the surrounding Menie Estate, has had to leave a hole in the middle of his project which includes two championship golf courses, a five-star hotel, 500 houses and 1,000 apartments.
If Forbes persists, golfers could face having to drive along fairways bordered by his rundown farm buildings with a placard reading "No golf course" in red writing hung outside.
But the project's managers have also face protests from other quarters: environmental campaigners claim the golf complex will damage the delicate ecosystem of the dunes, which are home to rare birds.
Part of the complex would be built on a designated Site of Special Scientific Interest. Some environmentalists fear the resort could destroy rare plant species and delicate sand dune systems.
And in late November a sub-committee of the local council unexpectedly vetoed the project, albeit in a knife-edge vote.
Trump's team reacted furiously, and in December the Scottish government itself stepped in, amid concern over the negative signal the decision could send to foreign investors.
First Minister Alex Salmond himself has taken up the case, and lawmakers in Scotland's autonomous Hollyrood parliament have been feverishly trying to work out a compromise.
Pressure was increased even further when Trump's top advisor said last week that the US tycoon is looking at possible alternative sites in Northern Ireland.
The Scottish government is expected to announce its decision within the next few months.
Trump appeared cautiously optimistic in an interview with BBC Scotland this week. "Everybody unless they are the enemy of Scotland wants two billion dollars or one billion pounds of investment coming to Aberdeenshire," he said.
The project's director Neil Hobday also points out the huge economic benefits the golf complex would bring to the region, including more than 12,000 new jobs.
"We'll look after the dunes, they'll be better than they ever were," he told AFP. "All we ask to do is plant grass so that thousands of people can come and enjoy the sights, the golf and being in that property."
And he added: "Moving sands may be of interest for a couple of scientists but not for the general public, nothing lives on it."
The row has echoes of the 1983 cult film "Local Hero", in which an astronomy-obsessed US oil tycoon earmarks a picturesque Scottish fishing village as the site of a new oil and gas development.
A wily, beach-dwelling hermit who it turns out owns the beach eventually persuades the tycoon to think again and set up a marine laboratory and observatory instead.
Like the inhabitants of the fictional village of Ferness -- the location for which is coincidentally just up the coast from Forbes' land -- local Aberdonians seem mostly favourable to investment by a rich American.
There are few problems with unemployment and a huge oil capital thanks to the nearby North Sea oil fields.
Trump says his project can only bring benefits, but admits that, ultimately, he can't force the region to accept it.
"I have a big stake in Scotland because of my heritage, my mother was born there. I'd like to do great things in Scotland. But we'll see what happens," he said.
Copyright © 2010 AFP. All rights reserved. More »
