AberdeenGolfCourse.co.uk - golf in Aberdeenshire, Scotland

Golf has an established heritage in Aberdeen and the surrounding area - as shown by the fact there are no fewer than 70 golf courses in Aberdeenshire, including 25 links courses.

The sheer variety of golf courses available make it the perfect hotspot for golfers of any ability.

Aberdeen itself offers five 18-hole courses (including the famous Royal Aberdeen, the 6th oldest golf course in the world), one 9 hole course, one 6 hole course, and numerous practice areas and putting greens.

You can see a map of golf courses in the North East below. Click one to find more details. Also included on the map is Balmedie Beach, the location of Donald Trump's proposed golf course, shown with the red badge.

Scroll down for info about Donald Trump's plans for a $1bn golf resort at Balmedie Beach

Donald Trump's £1bn Golf Course Resort at Balmedie Beach, Aberdeenshire, Scotland

Described variously by Donald Trump as a "masterpiece", environmentally friendly and a source of "great pride, revenue and employment" in a letter to Aberdeen councillors, Trump International Golf Links certainly looks good on paper.

Details of the development include two championship standard golf courses, a 5-star hotel, state-of-the-art golf academy, turf grass research centre, residential properties and all manner of amenities stretching along 1400 acres of the sand dunes at Balmedie Beach on the north east coast of Scotland. The courses are to be designed by famed golf course architect Martin Hawtree, who has played a part in Open Championship links design in the past.

According to the resort's website, Aberdeenshire's better known courses attract on average around 7,000 rounds of golf from visitors alone, 65% of whom hail from the United States. The Trump resort is expected to quadruple visitor numbers if it goes ahead.

Development plans for the resort can be found at its website.

Controversy Surrounding Trump's Proposed Resort

On November 29th 2007, Aberdeen councillors voted to reject the resort proposal, after outline planning permission was granted a few days earlier. The vote was hardly unanimous - it tied initially, and chairman Joe Bloggs' casting vote decided the motion in the negative. Unusually, Scottish Ministers have effectively overruled the decision of Aberdeen Council, 'calling in' the issue to be decided by Parliament on the basis that it raised questions of national, rather than just local, importance.

Environmental Impact

The tiny margin in the vote demonstrates the diverging opinion towards the resort. Environmental and wildlife protestors have objected to the development on the basis that Balmedie Beach is an area of natural importance, which would be disturbed beyond repair by the building works.

The proposed site at Balmedie Beach forms part of the Foveran Links Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI), and the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) has suggested that the mobile dunes at the site would be destroyed by the necessary stabilisation required for the construction of a golf course. For some, although the golf industry provides a positive boost to the economy and an ecologically sound means of developing land, in the instant case the price of developing Balmedie Beach is just too high.

Economic Impact

Despite environmental concerns, the obvious benefit of the resort is the estimated £1bn of investment into Scotland's economy which would be brought, along with a injection of jobs, and a boost to the nation's tourism and sports industries. Prior to the Council's rejection of the plan, Trump said to the Daily Record in November 2007 that he saw his resort outliving North Sea oil - and indeed, those who welcome the development on economic grounds wish to see Aberdeen's economic prosperity guaranteed well into the future, whatever the ongoing fortunes of the energy industry.

The development's website suggests potential economic benefits from the development itself of £205m and £262m for the Aberdeenshire and Scottish economies respectfully, and ongoing annual economic benefits for the two economies of £47m and £58m.

Political Controversy

The day prior to Scottish Ministers 'calling in' the Trump Resort issue for central determination, Scotland's First Minister Alex Salmond reportedly met with Trump representatives, but as it was a constituency matter (the proposed development site is within Salmond's constituency) the meeting passed off without the fanfare it would have generated if he was there with his First Minister hat on. While the First Minister did properly declare the apparent conflict of interest to the Parliament, the unprecedented action of Ministers in 'calling in' the question of whether to allow the development so soon after his meeting with the developers in question does suggest a certain bias in Government, and a likely outcome.

Let us know your views by voting in the poll at the top of this page.

NEW: you can also comment on Trump's proposals at the Medie Estate on our comments page (click here).