Do we need another golf course? The answer to that, possibly, depends on whether you are an ecologist, a golfer, or a member of a community like that at Embo which stands to gain a possible 400 jobs from the arrival of a course along its site of special scientific interest at Coul Links.

It also depends on the way you look at our coastline and the spread of golf courses along its dunes.

On hearing last week that Highland Council had given the go-ahead to a 371-hectare golf course development which incorporates protected areas of dunes, I thought of something that dune expert Dr Tom Dargie, a key figure driving the campaign against the development, said to me when I wrote an article on the proposal last year.

“If you take Google Earth,” he said, “and go up the east coast of Scotland, you go from one golf course to another on many of the sand dune resources. Coul is virtually the last good, deep sand system which is so far untouched by golf. That’s one of the reasons we should fight so hard.”

READ MORE: In the shadow of Trump. Coul Links golf course controversy

The question, in other words, is not just about Coul Links. It's about something bigger.

It’s not the first time Coul Links and its golf course proposal have been in the news. Some version or other of the plan has provoked controversy since 2016 when........

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