David Ross
Highland Correspondent
Donald Trump plans to use Freedom of Information legislation to make
Aberdeen City Council reveal the contents of documents on the offshore wind
farm he is convinced will blight his nearby golf development.
The American billionaire insists work on the giant hotel and housing
development, integral to his long term vision for a golf resort north of
Aberdeen at Menie, will only begin if plans for an 11-turbine European
Offshore Wind Deployment Centre (EOWDC), are scrapped.
It is not a conventional wind farm but a testing facility for offshore
technology and the tycoon lost a challenge in the Court of Session a year
ago But has said he is willing to go to the UK Supreme Court to stop the
£230m EOWDC.
Last May the Trump organisation asked the council for information including
all documents relating to any meetings and dialogue between the council and
the Scottish Government on the subject of the EOWDC planning application.
The council disclosed some information and but not all and said that it did
not hold certain other material. Mr Trump’s legal advisers appealed to
Rosemary Agnew, the Scottish Information Commissioner, who has now found
that in responding to the request “the council had failed to identify and
retrieve some information covered by the request”.
She now requires the local authority to respond to Trump International’s
requirement for the missing documents, although she was satisfied that the
council had done enough to search for some of the information requested.
But she found that that “Aberdeen City Council failed to comply in full
with the Environmental Information (Scotland) Regulations in responding to
the information request made by Trump International Golf Club Scotland Ltd.”
A spokesman for Aberdeen City Council said: “We can confirm that the
council has been informed of the Information Commissioner’s findings and
and is now considering the next steps which need to be taken.”
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