Aberdeen

Trump's golf course fuels airport expansion

By Anonymous on 02/02/2009
Tags:

Donald Trump

Donald Trump, the American tycoon behind the theme-park golf course set to trash the beautiful Aberdeenshire coast, has been linked to plans to expand Aberdeen airport. Not content with making a mockery of the Scottish government by ignoring local decision makers (not to mention 9 of the holes being built on a Site of Special Scientific Interest) Trump has been a driving force behind aviation expansion. The destruction of the largest and most superlative dynamic dune system in North-west Europe appears to not even register when a back-hander from a rich American is in the equation.

Trump’s golf course is aimed at rich foreign tourists; he plans to keep them on site as much as possible, minimising any economic gains for the local community. Obviously wealthy tourists will be flying in, and Donald has also planned helicopter rides from the airport to the resort! Aberdeen airport has been using his golf course to justify expansion. It's plans to support almost 6 million passengers by 2030 are yet another blow to the 'groundbreaking' climate bill.

The resort has already been criticised by Architecture and Design Scotland as destroying a very sensitive area and devaluing Scottish architectural tradition with mock Victorian construction, so the extra airport capacity is just a small part of the problem. Hollyrood is trying to trick us, showing artificial financial input with one hand, whilst hiding the real cost with the other. This golf course will bring nothing but irreversible environmental degradation on a local and global level. Do they really think that we are that blind?

Scottish Government slips Prestwick and Aberdeen expansion under the radar

By Anonymous on 23/12/2008
Tags:

Prestwick airport

Planestupid Scotland recently discovered that the Scottish national planning framework - which completely failed to consult the general public despite a period of consultation - now includes plans to expand Prestwick and Aberdeen airports. The Scottish Government now plans to expand four airports in a country of just over 5 million people - pure dead ecological madness.

Prestwick airport predicts that passenger numbers will more than double in the next ten years, rising as high as 12 million passengers by 2033. BAA also plans to increase Aberdeen's contribution to climate change to 5.9 million passengers / year by 2030. The recent road transport strategy also called for massive investment in roads at the expense of much needed public transport services. So much for much-hyped plans to reduce CO2 emissions - the Scottish Exec is determined to set runaway climate change into the tarmac.

With climate concerns are off the radar the only thing BAA has left to ruin are the lives of communities surrounding the four airports. The operator claims to care about the community: BAA Aberdeen are proud to have “a strong commitment to the communities around our airport and aim to address issues of prime local concern.” If that commitment includes disruption of school classes every five minutes, massive increases in air pollution and reduction in housing prices at a time of economic recession then BAA Aberdeen is doing a sterling job already - even without all their planned expansion.