Ellon Focus - Menie information

Menie Information

Many people have asked me questions about the Menie development and the arguments on either side. I have tried to explain what has happenned below. I'll add to this as events develop - I'm sure they will!

Useful links include:

Aberdeenshire site related to the Menie Inquiry

Note of Public Local Inquiry Pre-Meeting

FoISA
Local Government Committee
Public Inquiry is called.
PLI
Special Council Meeting
Call-in
Infrastructure Services Votes
Refusal Reasons
Reasons to Grant?
Formartine Area Votes

Freedom of Information

Under FoISA the Scotish Governemnt have published some information regarding the SG involvement in the Trump applciation.

Local Government Committee Report

The report into the Scottish Government’s call in of the Menie application makes interesting reading.

Of Alex Salmond the reports says

“The committee believes that, far from taking a precautionary approach, the first minister was cavalier in his actions and displayed, at best, exceptionally poor judgement and a worrying lack of awareness about the consequence of his actions,”

Of John Swwnney

“It is clear that the application was called in because of the decision to refuse. … It is the view of the Committee that the Cabinet Secretary acted inappropriately and potentially opened his decision to legal challenge.”

Full details are available at from the Scottish Parliament website and the summary from the BBC can be found at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/7295072.stm

13 March 2008

Menie Public Local Inquiry

At long last John Swinney made the only decision he respectably could - there will be a public local inquiry for the Trump development at Menie. This looks like it is on an accerelated timetable - the pre-inquiry meeting is on 26th March and we will know the timetable then but it is expected to start in June. How long it lasts depends on those giving evidence ….

12 March 2008

Public Local Inquiry

John Swinney MSP has finally announced that the issues around the Menie application will be decided after a full public local inquiry, nearly 3 months after the call in.

It typically takes a few months to sort out the arrangements in detail (the nearby Orrock Quarry which was "ready to proceed to appeal on 11th December has a pre-inquiry hearing on 19th March and that is very much the start of the hearing process) so watch this space for more information as it becomes available.

Special Meeting of 12th December

I am deeply sad to report three decisions taken today.

1. Aberdeenshire Council is not calling for a full public local enquiry: it will accept a process of written submissions and hearings.

2. Cllr Anne Robertson, Leader of the Council, moved a motion to support the Trump application in the same terns she proposed at the Formartine Area Committee. Martin Ford and I doubted the legality of this and declared we would exclude ourselves from this item. No-one else moved any amendment or made any comment and therefore Cllr Robertson's motion was deemed to be agreed.

3. Cllr Martin Ford was removed as Chair of ISC by 26 votes to 10 with 29 absentions. The ten councillors who supported Martin are LibDems Cllr Bellarby, Coull, Ford, Johnston, Jack Mair, Ross, Saluja and Storr plus independents Cllr Norrie and Cullen.

Papers for this meeting at available at http://www.aberdeenshire.gov.uk/committees/detail.asp?ref_no=802572870061668E802573A700482C4A

Scottish Government call in

Before Aberdeenshire Council was able to issue the Decision Notice, the Scottish Government called this application in on the grounds of national interest. I understand that once the Decision Notice had been issued, the only options would have been appeal or submit a fresh application.

A previous version of the above paragraph implied that there had been a delay in issuing the Decison Notice. For clarity, I should point out that it does normally take a short while for Decision Notices to be issued. Council Officers behaved perfectly in line with normal procedures and I apologise for the implication that they behaved otherwise..

Odd - if it was a matter of national interest, they could have called the application in anytime from when it was submitted in October 2006. To choose a time immediately after Aberdeenshire Council had made a decision known not to accord with the views of the First Minister, is open to mis-interpretation.

Infrastructure Services Votes

At Aberdeenshire's Infrastruture Services Committee (ISC) on Thursday 29th November, there were also two votes.

Three motions were moved
Outright REFUSAL moved by Cllr Ross, seconded by Cllr Storr
DEFER to exclude the SSSI from the development, moved by Cllr Johnston, secorded by Cllr Humphrey
GRANT (subject to conditions), moved by Cllr Cox, seconded by Cllr Howie

The first Vote
GRANT versus DEFER -
Grant - Pratt, Cox, Howie, McRae, Webster
Defer - Ford, Clark, Gifford, Humprey, Johnston, Mollison, Ross, Storr and Tait
Defer was therefore sucessful by 9 votes to 5.

Second Vote

DEFER versus REFUSE
Refuse - Cllrs Ford, Clark, Humprey, Johnston, Ross, Storr and Tait.
Defer - Cllrs Pratt, Cox, GIfford, Howie, McRae, Millison, Webster
With 7 votes on each side, the chair then used his casting vote to REFUSE.

Debra Storr "Commented, I am pleased at the rejection but hope that the Trump Organisation will come back with a smaller scale proposal, that is more sensitive to the local environment. I'd urge them to undertake real public engagement before they draw up new proposals. From December 2008 all major application will have to do such an engagement and I'd like to think that the Trump Organisation could lead the way"

Draft Minute

Refusal Reasons

Simply put I was had three main reasons for refusal at both meetings.

1. the, to quote the applicants own environmental assessment, "total loss" of the SSSI area.The citation for the SSSI was not for birds etc but for the mobile sand dune that is moving north at 5m to 15m a year.Stablising this results in the total loss of the scientific interest.

The applicant proposed that 9 holes out of the 36 to be developed would be on the SSSI. Most of the SSSI consists of a mobile sand sheet which doesn't look at all like a traditional links golf course. To turn this massive sand sheet into 9 holes would require hugh intervention. And as that intervention would include stablising the sheet, the loss in SSSI terms would be total. The policies for SSSI say that these areas should not be developed untill the reason for the citation can be maintained, there really isn;t any choice and the development is nationally important. It's difficult to see how 9 holes can be that important. Scottish National Heritage and I both asked whether these holes could be moved elsewhere. The Trump Organsiation refused saying they were needed there to give "a great back 9"

2. 500 houses on an area of undeveloped coast (which has policies similar to greenbelt).The justification for these houses was effectively to allow the capital costs of the development to be recovered in five years. There is no policy, local, regional or national that support building houses simply to pay for business development elsewhere.

The Trump Organisation plan was to see the holiday apartments and villas as shared ownership (timeshare to you and me) and sell the houses. These capital reciepts then cover the entire capital costs to be recovered in just five years. Who is investing here? The Trump Organisation or the buyers of the houses and apartments?

3. the overall size of the development in the undeveloped coast and an area of landscape significance.

It is simply gigantic. 500 houses (£750k to £1m). 950 holiday apartments, 36 villas and a 450 bed hotel, conference centre, etc. Take a look at the pictures at the Trump Organisation site and make your own mind up. I'd also comment that the design of the major building shown were inappropriate for the landscape and did not reflect the best of good architecture but in an outline plan, that kind of thing can be fixed.

All the above is backed up but a small heap of policies but I'll not bore you with them - you can see them listed in the Draft Minute

There were also other reasons relating to sccess, the social sustainability of the housing, etc, but the three reasons above were good enough to give solid refusal reasons.

Reason to Grant? Money and jobs.

I have a problem with big sums of money ... I need to trasnlate these into humdrum things. So let's count jobs.
1080 in resort. 360 more than this in the rest of Scotland.

Now I queried thse figures at the Departure hearing. Usually we are told that a tourist developent will generate so many jobs itself but will have a much wider impact than this meaning there is a big multiplier effect. This is the basic reason why the Council subsidises McDuff Aquarium, Duff House, Aden Country Park and other visitor attractions, museums, etc. They may lose money but overall the spend in tea shops, restaurants, etc etc is worth the subsidy. But here, the numbers outside the Resort are tiny. Why? Well the answer seems to be in the Travel Assessment. There it says that visitors are expected to find everything they need in the Resort and therefore have no need to go elsewhere. The base concept in fact is fly in - stay in resort - fly home..

Despite that, that is still 1440 jobs, across Scotland, An Asda store (to pick another big US company) creates according to Asda, an average of 444 jobs. So this is 3 or 4 Asda's. But Asda doesn't ask us to destroy SSSI's nor do they ask us to be allowed to build 200 super luxury houses on farmland near their store to pay for the build.

I think something can be developed and if it were the sensitive development the Trump Organisation was talking about in late 2005 and early 2006, then great. We can encourage tourism and retain the very precious environment - that after all is exactly what attracted Trump here in the first place.

Formatine Area Committee Votes

Cllr Roberston, seconded Cllr Merson moved
that Authority to GRANT outline planning permsion be delegated to Head of Development Management and Building Stadnards subject to (conditions)

Cllr Storr, seconded by Cllr Loveday moved
to REFUSE outline planning permission for the following reasons (...)

Cllr Johnston, seconded by Cllr Hendry moved
to DEFER for further discussion with the applicants and the submission of plans for one golf cousre and associated ammenities only, 300 holiday apartments and 36 holiday lodges and that the hotel, conference centre and holiday apartmenst be restricted in height.

First vote

DEFER v REFUSE
Defer : Cllrs Davidson, Gifford, Hendry, Johnston, Merson, Owen, and Robertson
Refuse: Cllrs Loveday, Duncan, Norrie and Storr
DEFER therefore carried

Second Vote

DEFER v GRANT
Grant: Davidson, Duncam Gifford, Hendry, Merson, Owen, and Robertson
Defer: Loveday, Johnston, Norrie and Storr
GRANT therefore carried.

When the minute of the meeting appeared, I was very unhappy at the words used and asked this be amended at the meeting on 4th December. Disappointingly in my colleagues.resisted this. However the reasons for refsual recorded at Infrastructure Services do fully reflect the reasons I gave at this meeting.

Official Minute


Many people have asked me questions about the Menie development and the arguments on either side. I have tried to explain what has happenned below. I'll add to this as events develop - I'm sure they will! Useful links include: Aberdeenshire site related to the Menie Inquiry Note of Public Local Inquiry Pre-Meeting	FoISA Local Government Committee Public Inquiry is called. PLI Special Council Meeting Call-in Infrastructure Services Votes Refusal Reasons Reasons to Grant? Formartine Area Votes
Freedom of Information Under FoISA the Scotish Governemnt have published some information regarding the SG involvement in the Trump applciation.
Local Government Committee Report The report into the Scottish Government’s call in of the Menie application makes interesting reading. Of Alex Salmond the reports says “The committee believes that, far from taking a precautionary approach, the first minister was cavalier in his actions and displayed, at best, exceptionally poor judgement and a worrying lack of awareness about the consequence of his actions,” Of John Swwnney “It is clear that the application was called in because of the decision to refuse. … It is the view of the Committee that the Cabinet Secretary acted inappropriately and potentially opened his decision to legal challenge.” Full details are available at from the Scottish Parliament website and the summary from the BBC can be found at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/7295072.stm 13 March 2008
Menie Public Local Inquiry At long last John Swinney made the only decision he respectably could - there will be a public local inquiry for the Trump development at Menie. This looks like it is on an accerelated timetable - the pre-inquiry meeting is on 26th March and we will know the timetable then but it is expected to start in June. How long it lasts depends on those giving evidence …. 12 March 2008
Public Local Inquiry John Swinney MSP has finally announced that the issues around the Menie application will be decided after a full public local inquiry, nearly 3 months after the call in. It typically takes a few months to sort out the arrangements in detail (the nearby Orrock Quarry which was "ready to proceed to appeal on 11th December has a pre-inquiry hearing on 19th March and that is very much the start of the hearing process) so watch this space for more information as it becomes available.
Special Meeting of 12th December I am deeply sad to report three decisions taken today. 1. Aberdeenshire Council is not calling for a full public local enquiry: it will accept a process of written submissions and hearings. 2. Cllr Anne Robertson, Leader of the Council, moved a motion to support the Trump application in the same terns she proposed at the Formartine Area Committee. Martin Ford and I doubted the legality of this and declared we would exclude ourselves from this item. No-one else moved any amendment or made any comment and therefore Cllr Robertson's motion was deemed to be agreed. 3. Cllr Martin Ford was removed as Chair of ISC by 26 votes to 10 with 29 absentions. The ten councillors who supported Martin are LibDems Cllr Bellarby, Coull, Ford, Johnston, Jack Mair, Ross, Saluja and Storr plus independents Cllr Norrie and Cullen. Papers for this meeting at available at http://www.aberdeenshire.gov.uk/committees/detail.asp?ref_no=802572870061668E802573A700482C4A
Scottish Government call in Before Aberdeenshire Council was able to issue the Decision Notice, the Scottish Government called this application in on the grounds of national interest. I understand that once the Decision Notice had been issued, the only options would have been appeal or submit a fresh application. A previous version of the above paragraph implied that there had been a delay in issuing the Decison Notice. For clarity, I should point out that it does normally take a short while for Decision Notices to be issued. Council Officers behaved perfectly in line with normal procedures and I apologise for the implication that they behaved otherwise.. Odd - if it was a matter of national interest, they could have called the application in anytime from when it was submitted in October 2006. To choose a time immediately after Aberdeenshire Council had made a decision known not to accord with the views of the First Minister, is open to mis-interpretation.
Infrastructure Services Votes At Aberdeenshire's Infrastruture Services Committee (ISC) on Thursday 29th November, there were also two votes. Three motions were moved Outright REFUSAL moved by Cllr Ross, seconded by Cllr Storr DEFER to exclude the SSSI from the development, moved by Cllr Johnston, secorded by Cllr Humphrey GRANT (subject to conditions), moved by Cllr Cox, seconded by Cllr Howie The first Vote GRANT versus DEFER - Grant - Pratt, Cox, Howie, McRae, Webster Defer - Ford, Clark, Gifford, Humprey, Johnston, Mollison, Ross, Storr and Tait Defer was therefore sucessful by 9 votes to 5. Second Vote DEFER versus REFUSE Refuse - Cllrs Ford, Clark, Humprey, Johnston, Ross, Storr and Tait. Defer - Cllrs Pratt, Cox, GIfford, Howie, McRae, Millison, Webster With 7 votes on each side, the chair then used his casting vote to REFUSE. Debra Storr "Commented, I am pleased at the rejection but hope that the Trump Organisation will come back with a smaller scale proposal, that is more sensitive to the local environment. I'd urge them to undertake real public engagement before they draw up new proposals. From December 2008 all major application will have to do such an engagement and I'd like to think that the Trump Organisation could lead the way" Draft Minute
Refusal Reasons Simply put I was had three main reasons for refusal at both meetings. 1. the, to quote the applicants own environmental assessment, "total loss" of the SSSI area.The citation for the SSSI was not for birds etc but for the mobile sand dune that is moving north at 5m to 15m a year.Stablising this results in the total loss of the scientific interest. The applicant proposed that 9 holes out of the 36 to be developed would be on the SSSI. Most of the SSSI consists of a mobile sand sheet which doesn't look at all like a traditional links golf course. To turn this massive sand sheet into 9 holes would require hugh intervention. And as that intervention would include stablising the sheet, the loss in SSSI terms would be total. The policies for SSSI say that these areas should not be developed untill the reason for the citation can be maintained, there really isn;t any choice and the development is nationally important. It's difficult to see how 9 holes can be that important. Scottish National Heritage and I both asked whether these holes could be moved elsewhere. The Trump Organsiation refused saying they were needed there to give "a great back 9" 2. 500 houses on an area of undeveloped coast (which has policies similar to greenbelt).The justification for these houses was effectively to allow the capital costs of the development to be recovered in five years. There is no policy, local, regional or national that support building houses simply to pay for business development elsewhere. The Trump Organisation plan was to see the holiday apartments and villas as shared ownership (timeshare to you and me) and sell the houses. These capital reciepts then cover the entire capital costs to be recovered in just five years. Who is investing here? The Trump Organisation or the buyers of the houses and apartments? 3. the overall size of the development in the undeveloped coast and an area of landscape significance. It is simply gigantic. 500 houses (£750k to £1m). 950 holiday apartments, 36 villas and a 450 bed hotel, conference centre, etc. Take a look at the pictures at the Trump Organisation site and make your own mind up. I'd also comment that the design of the major building shown were inappropriate for the landscape and did not reflect the best of good architecture but in an outline plan, that kind of thing can be fixed. All the above is backed up but a small heap of policies but I'll not bore you with them - you can see them listed in the Draft Minute There were also other reasons relating to sccess, the social sustainability of the housing, etc, but the three reasons above were good enough to give solid refusal reasons. Reason to Grant? Money and jobs. I have a problem with big sums of money ... I need to trasnlate these into humdrum things. So let's count jobs. 1080 in resort. 360 more than this in the rest of Scotland. Now I queried thse figures at the Departure hearing. Usually we are told that a tourist developent will generate so many jobs itself but will have a much wider impact than this meaning there is a big multiplier effect. This is the basic reason why the Council subsidises McDuff Aquarium, Duff House, Aden Country Park and other visitor attractions, museums, etc. They may lose money but overall the spend in tea shops, restaurants, etc etc is worth the subsidy. But here, the numbers outside the Resort are tiny. Why? Well the answer seems to be in the Travel Assessment. There it says that visitors are expected to find everything they need in the Resort and therefore have no need to go elsewhere. The base concept in fact is fly in - stay in resort - fly home.. Despite that, that is still 1440 jobs, across Scotland, An Asda store (to pick another big US company) creates according to Asda, an average of 444 jobs. So this is 3 or 4 Asda's. But Asda doesn't ask us to destroy SSSI's nor do they ask us to be allowed to build 200 super luxury houses on farmland near their store to pay for the build. I think something can be developed and if it were the sensitive development the Trump Organisation was talking about in late 2005 and early 2006, then great. We can encourage tourism and retain the very precious environment - that after all is exactly what attracted Trump here in the first place.
Formatine Area Committee Votes Cllr Roberston, seconded Cllr Merson moved that Authority to GRANT outline planning permsion be delegated to Head of Development Management and Building Stadnards subject to (conditions) Cllr Storr, seconded by Cllr Loveday moved to REFUSE outline planning permission for the following reasons (...) Cllr Johnston, seconded by Cllr Hendry moved to DEFER for further discussion with the applicants and the submission of plans for one golf cousre and associated ammenities only, 300 holiday apartments and 36 holiday lodges and that the hotel, conference centre and holiday apartmenst be restricted in height. First vote DEFER v REFUSE Defer : Cllrs Davidson, Gifford, Hendry, Johnston, Merson, Owen, and Robertson Refuse: Cllrs Loveday, Duncan, Norrie and Storr DEFER therefore carried Second Vote DEFER v GRANT Grant: Davidson, Duncam Gifford, Hendry, Merson, Owen, and Robertson Defer: Loveday, Johnston, Norrie and Storr GRANT therefore carried. When the minute of the meeting appeared, I was very unhappy at the words used and asked this be amended at the meeting on 4th December. Disappointingly in my colleagues.resisted this. However the reasons for refsual recorded at Infrastructure Services do fully reflect the reasons I gave at this meeting. Official Minute