BALMEDIE (Reuters) - The wild stretch of east coast Scottish shoreline near Balmedie village hardly looks the setting for a battle between America's most famous property tycoon and a stubborn farmer.
But this idyllic village is near where U.S. "Apprentice" boss Donald Trump wants to build a billion-pound golf resort, a five-star hotel, 950 time-share apartments and 500 houses, providing he can overcome the objections of Michael Forbes.
The determined 55-year-old salmon farmer has enlisted the support of well-wishers from around the world in his fight to stop Trump developing the Menie Estate near Balmedie beach, some 13 miles (21 km) north of the city of Aberdeen.
He is also refusing to sell land to Trump which sits right in the middle of the proposed development, believes the U.S. developer's plans offer little for Scotland and is hacked off at Trump for describing the state of his property as "disgusting".
"They say that money talks; not with me it doesn't," Forbes told Reuters. "He has no chance of getting it. Take your insult and shove it. Do not bother me again: NOT FOR SALE."
Local opinion is sharply divided ahead of a key meeting on Tuesday when councillors are due to make an initial ruling on Trump's plans while the letters for and against keep pouring in.
The golf resort would be Trump's sixth, but the only one on this side of the Atlantic.
It would, he says, be a product of his links with Scotland. His mother grew up on a croft in Stornoway on the Isle of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides.
"Because my mother is Mary MacLeod from Stornoway -- she lived in Stornoway for many years, I guess about 20 years before she came to the United States -- I really had a preference for Scotland, and it's also the home of golf," Trump said in an interview posted on a Web site created by his company to promote the development (www.trumpgolfscotland.com).
"We saw a piece of land in Scotland that was really beautiful. And it's our ambition to ... build the best course anywhere in Europe and maybe the best course in the world and I think we have the piece of land to do it."
The development provides a "unique opportunity to conserve and enhance the environment", according to Trump International.
