Donald Trump has said it is “full steam ahead” with his £1bn golf project in Scotland despite Trump Entertainment Resorts filing for bankruptcy last week for the third time.

The privately-owned Trump Organisation said yesterday the Scottish project had “nothing to do” with the bankruptcy of the casino operator. It also confirmed that it was “in extremely good shape”, and that the costs had been reduced by sterling’s weakness against the dollar.However it also said that it would be at least 2013 before any housing was completed.
In November, the US resort developer was granted outline planning permission to build a resort that would include two championship courses, a five-star hotel with 450 bedrooms, 950 holiday homes, 500 private family homes and 36 luxury golf villas.
Neil Hobday, Trump Organisation’s project director in Scotland, said he hoped detailed planning applications for the golf course would be finalised this year. He told the Financial Times: “If we are lucky enough to start digging dirt by this time next year, I would hope we would be playing golf by about the summer of 2012.”
There has been speculation that the downturn could threaten its future.
“We all hope that in four years’ time the economic environment will have significantly improved,” Mr Hobday said.
The Trump Organisation has so far bought the Menie Estate, 12 miles north of Aberdeen, and will pay to develop the golf courses. But Mr Hobday said that when the project reached the construction the buildings, Mr Trump would seek to bring in outside finance.

Trump, whose mother Mary Macleod was born on the island of Lewis before leaving in 1930 for New York, resigned from the Trump Entertainment Resorts board in frustration that bond holders on the board rebuffed his offer to buy the company and take it private. His daughter, Ivanka, also resigned from the board.
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