A judge has rejected a bid by Donald Trump to scrap a court date for his offshore wind battle so his lawyers could step into another legal challenge against the Scottish Government.
A hearing over the US businessman’s effort to block a £240million wind energy project off the coast of Aberdeen is due to start next month.
The tycoon has vehemently opposed the planned 11-turbine European Offshore Wind Deployment Centre, which would be visible from his golf resort at Menie, Aberdeenshire.
The Scottish Government approved the scheme, but Mr Trump wants the decision reversed.
This week, his legal team argued at the Court of Session for the case to go straight to appeal so that lawyers can provide opposition to Scottish ministers in the separate Viking Energy windfarm case in Shetland.
The SNP government is appealing against a ruling by Lady Clark of Calton, who upheld a competency challenge against the 103-turbine scheme for Shetland because the developer did not have an electricity generating licence.
Scottish ministers are to begin a challenge to Lady Clark’s ruling before three judges in February next year.
The court heard that an identical issue to that decided in the Shetland case arose in the Trump action.
Gordon Steele QC, for Trump International Golf Club, said the Shetland action had been brought by a local group, Sustainable Shetland, with very limited funding and it would not argue the competency point in the appeal.
Mr Steele said that if the Trump team succeeded on the competency issue, it “may well make all other points in the petition irrelevant and unnecessary”.
But Lord Woolman decided that the Trump hearing should proceed as planned. He said if submissions were completed, there was a reasonable prospect that a decision would be available before the Shetland appeal.
The judge added there was a chance that Trump International Golf Club may be able to appear as a contradictor in the appeal on the competency point, depending on timing.
Douglas Armstrong QC, for Aberdeen Offshore Windfarm Development, the company behind the centre, had said they were concerned about any possible delay.
Recommended for you
