'Hoodwinked and ashamed': Man who brokered Trump's Scottish golf resort has deep regrets
The man who helped broker the deal for former President Donald Trump to set up a golf resort in Scotland now has deep regrets.
The BBC reports that Neil Hobday, the project director for Trump's golf resort in Aberdeenshire, has apologized for pushing through a deal that he says has not delivered on its promises to local residents.
Hobday tells the BBC that he now thinks Trump was lying when he vowed to invest £1 billion into the project to make it a massive tourist destination that would provide the community with an economic boom.
"I don't think even if he could raise the money to build the whole thing out, he wanted the golf course and that was it," he tells BBC. "He was willing to fight the environmental battle and create this impression that this was a $1 billion project and Scotland absolutely needed it. But I think he never really had the money or the intention of finishing it."
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The BBC then goes into detail about the promises the Trump Organization made to Aberdeenshire and the reality of how the project really unfolded.
"The original proposal also included approval for a 450-room hotel, 950 holiday apartments, 36 golf villas and 500 houses for sale," reports BBC. "None of these elements, and the thousands of new jobs promised, have materialized so far -- and the golf resort has yet to turn a profit, racking up £13.3m in losses since it opened."
All of this has led Hobday to have a profound feeling of regret for his role in helping Trump secure the rights to build the course.
"I feel very hoodwinked and ashamed that I fell for it and Scotland fell for it," he said. "We all fell for it. He was never going to do it."