Donald Trump has lost a legal action against a major experimental windfarm being built close to his golf resort in Aberdeenshire.
The billionaire property developer had alleged that Alex Salmond, Scotland's
first minister, had secretly interfered in the decision to approve the
11-turbine European offshore wind deployment centre site (EOWDC) in
Aberdeen Bay – a claim rejected on Tuesday by a Scottish civil court
judge, Lord Doherty.
Making clear he was expecting to appeal,
Trump alleged there had been clear and illegal bias by the Scottish
government – and that his rights under the European convention of human
rights had been breached.
Doherty dismissed the claims that
Salmond had interfered, stating he "was not persuaded that the
fair-minded and informed observer would conclude that there was a real
possibility of bias on the part of the decision-maker; or that the
decision not to have a public inquiry had been unreasonable or
unlawful".
In a ruling with far wider significance for the future of Scottish wind power,
the judge also disputed a previous court ruling that no wind farm could
be approved until or unless it has an electricity generation licence.
Planning
approval for one of Europe's largest onshore windfarms, the huge
103-turbine Viking scheme on Shetland, was suspended in October after a
judge, Lady Clark, ruled that it should not have been granted without an
electricity generation licence under the Electricity Act 1989.
Her
decision – against which the Scottish government is appealing – caused
consternation for renewables companies and ministers since it implied
that numerous windfarm applications could be legally flawed. Clark also
said ministers had breached the EU birds directive, by failing to
properly protect the whimbrel, a rare and vulnerable wading bird native
to Shetland.
Trump sought
but failed last year to become a party to the Viking windfarm appeal,
to support the Sustainable Shetland anti-windfarm legal case, but used that case to justify his judicial review of the EOWDC project.
In
a summary of Doherty's decision released on Tuesday morning, the court
of session said Doherty had decided to reject the earlier ruling. He
believed that "on a proper construction of the 1989 act the respondents
had power to grant section 36 consent to persons such as Aberdeen
Offshore Wind Farm Ltd."
In a brief statement issued in New York,
the Trump Organisation said: "Today's decision has not altered our
unwavering commitment to protect our investment in Scotland.
"We
are reviewing Lord Doherty's decision and will pursue the legal options
available to us as recommended by our counsel. Communities worldwide
continue to challenge the destructive proliferation of wind turbines and
we will remain a fierce opponent at the forefront of this battle.
"Despite
today's decision, the EOWDC proposal has numerous economic and legal
obstacles that will ultimately prevent its construction."
The
court had heard evidence from a golfing blogger and a professor of
linguistics that Salmond had told him during lunch at a function that
the EOWDC scheme would "absolutely" go ahead, before planning approval
had been granted by Marine Scotland.
Trump also alleges that the
decision not to have a full planning inquiry, despite the fact it was
not know what type of wind turbines would be used for the project, and
that different types of machine could be used at different times, was
improper.
Doherty ruled on Tuesday that Trump's human rights were
not relevant to this case, adding that he was "satisfied that the
[planning] minister had taken account of the experimental nature of the
deployment centre; and that he was entitled to grant consent subject to
the conditions which he imposed".
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