President-elect Donald Trump withdrew an application to build a sea wall aimed at protecting his golf resort in Ireland, the latest twist in a project that had stoked tensions in a tiny village on the Atlantic coast.
Trump’s company shelved plans to construct defenses about 1.7 miles (2.8 kilometers) long at his golf resort close to the village of Doonbeg, it said in a statement on Tuesday. The plan was submitted on behalf of Trump in May.
The planned sea barrier may now be replaced with a scaled-down version, which will extend to about 600 meters (656 yareds) at the south of the beach and 250 meters at the north of the beach, Trump International Golf Links and Hotel, Doonbeg, said in a statement on Tuesday. The new proposals were displayed in the resort’s Ocean View room.
Trump plans to expand the resort “is fundamentally dependent on the provision of adequate protection from coastal erosion,” the organization said. “All efforts at soft management of the coastline have failed.”
Trump Hotels bought the 400-acre property in 2014 after a U.S. hedge fund placed it into receivership. The resort is among the biggest employers in the area, and a number of local people and interest groups backed the wall. Still, in an echo of the battles Trump has fought over his golf course in Scotland, environmentalists fought back.
“There is no doubt the original proposal would have stopped the development of the dune system and scoured the beach,” Tony Lowes, director of Friends of the Irish Environment, said. “The threat of Trump’s Irish wall has hung over Doonbeg like a dark cloud for more than two years.”
A new planning application, which will include sheet metal piling and rock armor, will be submitted “at the soonest,” Doonbeg said. The works would not be visible to view, being covered by sand and a cobble bank which backs the beach, it said. The building of the defense system may take about three months.
Joe Russell, Doonbeg’s general manager, told the Irish Times that the change is driven by a concern that it could take as long as four years to push the plan through the approval process. He said something needed to be done quickly in the face of coastal erosion, the newspaper reported.
Opponents of the wall plan said they had yet to decide whether they would back the new proposal.
“We’re glad President-elect Trump has abandoned his plan,” said Green Party leader Eamon Ryan. “We will be asking the same scientific experts who advised us on our own earlier objection to consider the revised proposal. We want to protect the local jobs but believe this can best be done by adapting the golf course to the local environment.”
(c) 2016, Bloomberg ยท Peter Flanagan
