Money can’t buy you love in this particular area of Scotland it would seem. The scheme would create around £100 million a year for the area, but it’s the size of the project and the ecological destruction that has created such a fuss. Trump had planned to build two championship golf courses, 1,500 holiday homes, 36 golf villas and a 450-room hotel, which would not only cause untold amounts of C02, but would also inflict massive damage on the immediate environment. Many of those who have played Trump’s course in Florida have come away bewildered by the fact it’s less like golf and more like Disney Land.

“If the project is consented,” said the RSPB back in November 2007, “it will destroy 3.9% of all the bare dune sand in Scotland and 2.6% of all the mobile dune vegetation in Scotland.”

Refreshingly, the council listened and adhered to the charity’s wishes, denying the ageing playboy his play thing. This prompted the poor man’s Alan Sugar to huffily threaten withdrawing from Scotland with all his filthy lucre. Trump has an affinity with the Highlands; his late mother Mary Macleod, was born in the village of Tong outside Stornoway before leaving the island of Lewis in 1930 for a new life in New York.

Now it seems Trump has decided to relent and has recently opened dialogue with the RSBP in an attempt to appease the council by not damaging fragile shifting sand dunes. The RSPB Scotland and the Scottish Wildlife Trust, under the instructions of the tycoon, have commissioned Mike Wood to come up with an alternative, “greener” design for the 18-hole course. Environmentalists believe it is possible to to build it without encroaching onto sensitive sand dunes.

Mr Trump’s right-hand man, George Sorial, said: “We sincerely appreciate the RSPB’s efforts at golf course design but on initial examination the layout would not constitute a 100% links course and is certainly not a championship course.”

Like the UK version of The Apprentice, the saga continues, with much focused interest from all parties.