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| Donald Trump loses Scottish windfarm appeal | |
| (35 minutes later) | |
| Donald Trump, the leading Republican candidate for the US presidency, has lost his campaign against windfarms being built near his golf course in Scotland. | Donald Trump, the leading Republican candidate for the US presidency, has lost his campaign against windfarms being built near his golf course in Scotland. |
| In a unanimous decision, judges on the supreme court at Westminster rejected his appeal against planning permission being granted by Scottish ministers for the offshore turbines. | In a unanimous decision, judges on the supreme court at Westminster rejected his appeal against planning permission being granted by Scottish ministers for the offshore turbines. |
| Despite losing at every earlier stage in the Scottish courts, the billionaire property developer had funded a fresh challenge to prevent a windfarm being built within sight of his Menie golf resort in Aberdeenshire. | |
| Trump, 69, whose mother was Scottish, did not appear in person at the supreme court in Westminster for any of the hearings. | Trump, 69, whose mother was Scottish, did not appear in person at the supreme court in Westminster for any of the hearings. |
| His lawyers had appealed on two grounds that Scottish ministers had no power under the 1989 act to grant consent to the windfarm application and that there was a problem with the design application. | |
| The judges said: “It is clear that the consent contains a mechanism enabling the Scottish ministers to use both the construction method statement and the design statement to regulate the design of the windfarm in the interests of environmental protection, and to require compliance with those statements.” | |
| The Menie estate was purchased by Trump in 2006 and transformed into a golf resort on protected coastal dunes north of Aberdeen. | |
| In 2011, Aberdeen Offshore Wind Farm Limited applied for consent under the Electricity Act 1989 to construct an electricity generating station and offshore wind turbines off Aberdeenshire. | |
| Permission was granted by the Scottish government in 2013 for 11 turbines, which Trump says will be a “monstrous” blight on the coastal landscape. He is questioning whether the planning decision is lawful. The turbines will be about two miles (3km) from the course. | |
| Commenting on the decision, Gary McGovern, energy and planning partner at the law firm Pinsent Masons, said: “Donald Trump will be hoping he has more success at the US ballot box than he does in the courts. | |
| “Today’s decision is long overdue but is still a welcome shot in the arm for offshore wind and the wider UK renewables industry. In pursuing a weak argument described previously in the court of session as ‘fallacious’, this case has perpetuated a lingering doubt over longstanding legal principles, and that has been to the detriment of the whole energy industry. | |
| “Developers will therefore breathe a sigh of relief and it is hoped that this and other projects affected can now gather pace, without the threat of costly legal challenges and delays on similarly dubious grounds hanging over them.” |