Donald Trump, the distinctively coiffured US property magnate has been successful in his quest to get his £1bn gold resort approved in Aberdeenshire. These mega golf developments are always enormous on scale, but also potentially offer lots of jobs, 6,000 in this case. Trump will build - breathe in - two 18-hole golf courses with associated clubhouse, starter's hut, caddy shack, short-game practice area and driving range, together with a 450-bedroom hotel with conference centre and spa (do golfers ever stay in YMCAs?), 950 holiday apartments in four blocks, 36 golf villas, 500 houses for sale, accommodation for 400 staff and a new access onto the A90 trunk road, with ancillary developments. Obviously this has no mean environmental impact - the development will take up 1400 acres of North Aberdeenshire coast involving, in the words of the RSPB, the "destruction of a dune system with its precious system".

Aberdeenshire Council rejected the plan initially in November 2007, but it was a very tight vote on the infrastructure committee, 7-7 until the chairman cast the deciding vote against (he's now lost his job). This then caused the leadership of Aberdeen City Council to write a letter to every Shire councillor, urging them to re-think.

The ruling SNP agreed, in fact they were massively in support, imagine how £1bn investment looks on the balance sheets. After a public local enquiry, the infrastructure committee and other opponents have found themselves well and truly "trumped". Now the possible economic benefits to a region that, while oil-wealthy for the moment, also struggles to develop due to its remoteness, could be enormous. But is the loss of and disruption to some of what the Scottish Wildlife Trust call "one of the top five dune habitats in Britain" a price worth paying? Alex Salmond believes so saying: "The economic and social benefits for the North East of Scotland substantially outweigh any environmental impact".

Let's hope there's still a market for it hey? But more seriously - where do you balance the environment against business development as a council? While developments the size of Trump's are not common, the issue is. Just Google news search council and green belt as I've just done and we've got, Edinburgh with a potential £7.5bn worth of development on green-belt land, Norfolk wondering where to fit 74,700 extra homes over the next 18 years and South Buckinghamshire District Council debating whether to approve a new 44-hectare film set for Pinewood Studios to give a few examples.

Our recent debate on the green belt in issue 3 caused a stir and this issue's not going to go away. How do you judge, especially in the face of huge money and potential job creation, to say yes or no to new development?