Here in East Devon we have had our fair share of promises from developers – particularly promises about employment. The ” promised” jobs get built into ” economic growth” forecasts that fuel housing need predictions and then suddenly fail to materialise – though the housing figures never get adjusted to reflect the cuts.
Here we highlighted the difference between promised jobs and real jobs at the Exmouth Premier Inn – 50 promised, 25 delivered:
https://eastdevonwatch.org/2014/12/10/jobs-at-premier-inn-exmouth-think-of-a-number-then-half-it/
And here with the relocation of the DPD depot from Sowton to Skypark 147 promised down to 35 delivered:
https://eastdevonwatch.org/2015/12/07/skypark-jobs-now-you-see-them-now-you-dont/
and we note the promise that Lidl “will create 500 jobs” at the recently-sold Sainsbury’s depot site:
A timely reminder not to believe everything you hear comes from no less than US presidential candidate Donald Trump, who promised to inject around £1 billion pounds and 6,000 jobs into the Scottish economy and now threatens to cancel most of that if the UK government causes any trouble after recent racial comments.
Best estimates are that he has so far spent around £30 million and created less than 100 jobs:
“…Councillor Martin Ford was chairman of Aberdeenshire Council’s infrastructure services committee when Trump’s planning application was received in 2006.
After using his casting vote to go against the plans, he was later sacked from the position.
Cllr Ford said: “Mr Trump promised everything under the sun and they were all ludicrous, ridiculous exaggerations which nobody should have believed. He said it was a £1billion investment but it was about £13million in 2011 – including buying the estate.
By the end of 2013, it had gone up to about £25million and, since then, he’s built a clubhouse and a few sheds. It’s pretty safe to say he’s spent under £30million.
“From the point where the plan was first announced, the amount of money and the number of jobs just kept getting bigger.
“Fewer than 100 jobs is a tiny fraction of what was pledged and promised. It is important to note that Trump has not built a golf resort – he’s built a golf course and clubhouse.
“He was going to build a 450-bed five-star hotel. He has instead converted Menie House into a small hotel.
“So you can see the pattern here – £1billion goes down to £30million, 6000 jobs go down to 95 and a 450-bed hotel which has something like six rooms.”
http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/donald-trumps-700m-blowhard-economist-7150504
East Devon Watch 