Drive for wind turbines will destroy tourism, says Trump

The US businessman said he was assured by Alex Salmond and Jack McConnell before him that an offshore wind turbine development would not be built near his golf resort on the Aberdeenshire coast.

Both politicians deny they gave assurances.

But Mr Trump said: “What they did is they lured me in. I spent this money and now I might regret it.

“I think other people that want to invest in Scotland are watching me, and they’re watching what happened and I think they’re going to say, ‘We’re not going to invest in Scotland’.”

Mr Trump made the comments in a dramatic appearance before a committee at the Holyrood Parliament in Edinburgh investigating the Scottish Government’s renewable energy targets.

In a series of exchanges, Mr Trump warned that the drive for wind farms will “destroy” tourism, claimed climate change is not man-made and said Scottish renewable targets are “phoney”.

He claimed to be an expert on tourism and opinion polls, and rejected suggestions that he was using opposition to the offshore development as a face-saving exercise to pull out.

Despite being asked to discuss the SNP administration’s energy targets, Mr Trump repeatedly focused on his fight to stop an 11-turbine offshore test centre in Aberdeen Bay.

Asked to point to evidence that wind farms will destroy tourism, Mr Trump declared: “I am the evidence.”

The flamboyant businessman also strayed away from the energy theme by bringing the Lockerbie bomber into the discussion, saying terminally-ill Abdelbaset al-Megrahi was seen “running in a park” last week.

Opening his remarks on energy targets, he told MSPs: “This is a very, very serious problem that we are addressing. In my opinion, it is one of the most serious problems that Scotland will have or has had.”

He offered support to technologies such as wind and wave, but warned: “Wind turbines, made in China, are going to be the destruction – almost a total destruction – of your tourism industry.”

The Scottish Government wants renewable energy sources to meet the existing demand for electricity by 2020.

Mr Trump said Scotland is 20 years behind other nations, adding: “Many countries have decided they don’t want wind, because it doesn’t work without massive subsidies, it kills massive amounts of birds and wildlife, and there are lots of other reasons.”