The National Trust’s legal bid to block a £100 million (€121 million) golf resort near the Giant’s Causeway amounts to a trade war by other means, the High Court in Belfast heard yesterday.
Lawyers for the team behind the project claimed the charity’s opposition was based on its own commercial interests in the area.
The trust is seeking to stop development of a championship links golf course, five-star, 120-bedroom hotel and 75 villas at Runkerry near Bushmills because of its proximity to the causeway stones, a Unesco World Heritage Site.
Stephen Shaw QC for the developers argued the National Trust’s “commercial wing” would want to promote and protect the causeway against what it perceived to be an economic rival. “It’s a trade war by other means, my Lord.”