Ten years ago, the man who now occupies the Oval Office was invited to Aberdeenshire to give evidence at a public local inquiry about his golf course plans. It was set up to examine the arguments for and against what Mr Trump said would be the world’s greatest golf course on the protected sand dunes. Environmentalists claimed he was overstating its potential in order to justify building part of his course on the site. But in his evidence in June 2008, Mr Trump insisted the Menie estate had the rare qualities required for a world-beating golf course. There were many bold claims about the proposed resort with big numbers attached. It was supposed to be a £1bn investment, creating about 6,000 jobs. It was to include not one but two championship golf courses, a 450-bedroom hotel and almost 1,500 holiday and residential homes. The massive scale of this promised investment was suitably beguiling. It persuaded the local inquiry team and even government ministers that the economic benefit justified the environmental impact.

Telling the 2008 inquiry how Menie would make a world-class golf course

The Scottish government controversially called in Mr Trump’s planning application for a national decision after it was thrown out by Aberdeenshire Council. In November 2008 they granted him the planning permission he desired. In those days Mr Trump was still chummy with Scotland’s first minister Alex Salmond, who was also the local MSP in Aberdeenshire. As first minister he was able to give the Trump team direct access to Scotland’s chief planner. Salmond would be accused of misusing his position to help a billionaire, but a parliamentary inquiry found he had not broken the rules. Much of what was promised by Mr Trump has yet to materialise. By 2018 the resort included one golf course and a club house, a 16-bedroom boutique hotel and some lodges. The Trump Organization says it has spent around £100m, which is about 10% of what was promised. It says about 500 people were involved in construction and that it employs 150 people, including part-time and seasonal staff. Mr Salmond, who supported the golf development as local MSP, says that is nowhere near good enough. “The people who were putting it forward did not live up and honour the agreements they made to the Scottish people,” he says.

A decade on, the Trump-Salmond relationship has soured. Global circumstances have also changed. The financial crisis intensified in late 2008, just as Mr Trump was granted planning permission for the golf course. More recently the 2014 oil price crash hit the Aberdeenshire economy hard. Mr Trump did not use either as an excuse for delaying development. Instead, he put much of it on hold while he fought his legal battle against the wind farm. Mr Salmond branded Mr Trump a “three-time loser” in 2015 when he lost a third attempt to block the wind project at the UK Supreme Court. Mr Trump hit back calling Mr Salmond “a has-been and totally irrelevant”. Their bitter feud has never really stopped. With the wind farm fight decided, the leader of Aberdeenshire Council, Jim Gifford, has called on the Trump Organization to finish the job they began at Menie. “I think they have an obligation to bring forward what they promised, that’s the bottom line of it,” he says. “The difficulty we have is we can’t force them to do that.”

Even if we’d only spent £10m that should be celebrated” Sarah Malone, Trump International