When Donald Trump revealed plans to build a golf club in Aberdeenshire, Scotland, he claimed that it would be a $1 billion project. But that ultimately didn’t happen, and one former aid is not happy about it.
Neil Hobday, the project director for the Trump Organization, recently did an interview with “Trumped,” a new BBC Sounds podcast that revisits the controversy surrounding the golf course. And in that interview, he called out Donald Trump for the way the whole project played out.
“I don’t think even if he could raise the money to build the whole thing out, he wanted the golf course and that was it,” Hobday said.
“He was willing to fight the environmental battle and create this impression that this was a $1 billion project and Scotland absolutely needed it. But I think he never really had the money or the intention of finishing it.”
Despite promising a $1 billion investment, the Trump Organization said it has spent £100m on the Aberdeenshire golf resort, but according to the BBC, the resort has a net book value of just £33.2m and 81 employees.
The project has not gone as promised.
It was supposed to include a 450-room hotel, 950 holiday apartments, 36 golf villas, and 500 houses that were supposed to be sold. It was also supposed to create thousands of jobs for those in the area. None of that has happened.
Hobday had some pretty harsh words for Trump, making it clear that he felt Trump deceived him and the nation of Scotland.
“I feel very hoodwinked and ashamed that I fell for it and Scotland fell for it. We all fell for it. He was never going to do it,” Hobday said.
[BBC]
