The devastating impact of Donald Trump’s Scottish golf courses

Alicia Bruce photographs the redevelopment of Menie, the natural heritage spot that lost its conservation status and local community to make way for 18 holes.

In 2006, Ali­cia Bruce had just grad­u­at­ed from study­ing Pho­tog­ra­phy, Film, and Imag­ing at Edin­burgh Napi­er Uni­ver­si­ty, when a sto­ry in her local news­pa­per caught her atten­tion. A celebri­ty prop­er­ty tycoon from the USA, a cer­tain Don­ald Trump, had announced that he was plan­ning to build the great­est golf course in the world” in Menie, Aberdeen­shire – a stone’s throw away from where she grew up and would play as a child.

What real­ly shocked me was the fan­fare from the local press. They were rolling out the red car­pet for him,” Bruce recalls. Many local res­i­dents were vil­i­fied, they were called peas­ants’ and pigs’ – they were thrust into the media against their will. I couldn’t quite believe what I was read­ing because it seemed like an emp­ty promise.”

With its lush green­ery, brush­ing the ocean loca­tion and mov­ing dunes, Menie was a par­tic­u­lar­ly beau­ti­ful and spe­cial patch of nature on the Scot­tish east coast. But it was also a Site of Spe­cial Sci­en­tif­ic Inter­est (SSSI) – the same des­ig­na­tion grant­ed to the Ama­zon Rain­for­est – and the idea that the area would be devel­oped was unthink­able to many who had lived in the area their whole lives.

The local coun­cil reject­ed it, and then they were vil­i­fied for it,” alleges Bruce. But the deci­sion was over­turned by then-First Min­is­ter Alex Salmond. He had met with Trump and then the build­ing start­ed a few years lat­er.” Salmond, who was also the MSP for Menie, would pre­dict the eco­nom­ic ben­e­fits of the course to sub­stan­tial­ly out­weigh any envi­ron­men­tal impact”. Called the Trump Inter­na­tion­al Scot­land golf course, it stands today as an 18-hole, 500-hectare, mon­ey haem­or­rhag­ing scar on the for­mer nat­ur­al beau­ty hotspot.

See­ing the envi­ron­men­tal dam­age and now stripped of its con­ser­va­tion sta­tus, Bruce began trav­el­ling to the north­east coast to doc­u­ment its impact on Menie’s land­scape and locals – mak­ing por­traits of res­i­dents, who resist­ed in the face of com­pul­so­ry pur­chase orders for their homes and land and refused to pack up and leave. Now, ten years after the course first opened in 2013, those pic­tures are pre­sent­ed in her soon-to-be-pub­lished pho­to­book I Burn But I Am Not Con­sumed.

While a con­tro­ver­sial and poten­tial­ly crim­i­nal term as a Pres­i­dent of the USA has tak­en some of the orig­i­nal sheen off of Trump’s image in Scot­land, his impact in the local area remains. Fea­tur­ing inter­views with those in the area, most of whom have now become close friends with Bruce, the book’s pic­tures show a com­mu­ni­ty who not only have seen their access to local land heav­i­ly restrict­ed, but have been alleged­ly forced to deal with aggres­sion and intim­i­da­tion from Trump’s employees.

There was a jour­nal­ist I know who was arrest­ed, and had DNA sam­ples tak­en and all of his equip­ment tak­en off him,” she claims. Because he went to Trump’s office and asked why Mol­ly, Mike and Sheila’s water had been cut off.” Anoth­er friend, Rohan Beyts, was walk­ing on the dunes when she realised that he need­ed to go to the toi­let. Find­ing a qui­et spot to relieve him­self, she con­tin­ued onwards think­ing lit­tle of the moment until police turned up at her door three days lat­er to charge her under the Crim­i­nal Pro­ce­dure (Scot­land) Act – she had been filmed uri­nat­ing by Trump employ­ees and a news­pa­per pho­tog­ra­ph­er. A judge would lat­er crit­i­cise Trump Scot­land, say­ing that the actions could be viewed as voyeurism.”

There’s also a sub­ver­sive ele­ment to the por­traits, with Bruce hav­ing her sit­ters (she doesn’t like the term sub­jects’) recre­ate scenes and pos­es from clas­sic paint­ings includ­ing Grant Wood’s Amer­i­can Goth­ic. Tra­di­tion­al­ly you would go into a gallery expect­ing to see the great and good on the wall and there’s this sort of cultism,” Bruce explains. So what I want­ed to do was show these amaz­ing, remark­able peo­ple and put them at the cen­tre of attention.”

Per­haps the most pow­er­ful shot sees Susan Munro sit­ting on a sand dune, casu­al­ly smok­ing a cig­a­rette while re-enact­ing Archibald D. Reid’s paint­ing On the Bents (1873). I was speak­ing to Susan and Sheila Forbes over lock­down, and we were speak­ing about how nice it would be to bring every­thing togeth­er in a book for them and then both of them died,” Bruce says. So it’s a trib­ute to them.”

I Burn But I Am Not Con­sumed by Ali­cia Bruce is pub­lished by Day­light Books.

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