Martin A. Ford is a Scottish politician, who is the Scottish Green Party councillor for the East Garioch ward of

Aberdeenshire Aberdeenshire ( sco, Aiberdeenshire; gd, Siorrachd Obar Dheathain) is one of the 32 Subdivisions of Scotland#council areas of Scotland, council areas of Scotland. It takes its name from the County of Aberdeen which has substantially differe ...

Council. He had a prominent role in the consideration of a planning application for a golf course at Balmedie.

Education and early life

Ford trained as a botanist, completing a doctorate University of Wales (at University College Swansea) in 1986; 'Pollinator-mediated interactions between out-breeding annual weeds'. In 1988 he moved to Aberdeenshire to work at the North of Scotland College of Agriculture.

Political career

He stood as a candidate in the

1992 United Kingdom general election The 1992 United Kingdom general election was held on Thursday 9 April 1992, to elect 651 members to the House of Commons. The election resulted in the fourth consecutive victory for the Conservative Party since 1979 and would be the last tim ...

for the Aberdeen North to raise environmental issues. In the

1999 Scottish local elections Local elections were held in Scotland on 6 May 1999, the same day as First Scottish Parliament elections. It was the second election for all 32 Scottish councils and the first after a major review into all wards. Boundary changes A Major review ...

, he was first elected to

Council as a

Lib Dem The Liberal Democrats (commonly referred to as the Lib Dems) are a liberal political party in the United Kingdom. Since the 1992 general election, with the exception of the 2015 general election, they have been the third-largest UK political ...

councillor. He was elected again in

2003 File:2003 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: The crew of STS-107 perished when the Space Shuttle Columbia disintegrated during reentry into Earth's atmosphere; SARS became an epidemic in China, and was a precursor to SARS-CoV-2; A des ...

and

2007 File:2007 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: Steve Jobs unveils Apple's first iPhone; TAM Airlines Flight 3054 overruns a runway and crashes into a gas station, killing almost 200 people; Former Pakistani Prime Minister of Pakistan, Pr ...

. In 2006, Donald Trump bought the Menie estate in Balmedie, Aberdeenshire, Scotland, and Ford found himself chair of the committee that would determine the planning application to create a highly contentious golf resort against the wishes of local residents on an area designated as a site of special scientific interest. In November 2006, Ford had the casting vote, which led to the committee rejecting plans for the Menie resort, however, the Scottish Government stepped in and the development proceeded. Ford spoke to BBC's

Panorama A panorama (formed from Greek πᾶν "all" + ὅραμα "view") is any wide-angle view or representation of a physical space, whether in painting, drawing, photography, film, seismic images, or 3D modeling. The word was originally coined in ...

television programme about the development, following this he received several letters from the council's chief executive. In December 2007, he was unseated from the position of committee chair of Aberdeenshire Council's infrastructure services. In May 2008, he was reported to be considering standing as a candidate for the UK Parliament Aberdeen South seat. He stood for Rector of the University of Aberdeen in 2008, but was beaten by Stephen Robertson. He resigned from the Lib-dems in January 2009, after having been a member of the party for twenty years. Six months later he joined the Greens, who two years previously had made a public invitation for him to join them. In 2011, Ford's account of the Trump affair ''Deciding the Fate of a Magical Wild Place'' was published in the Journal of Irish and Scottish Studies In May 2015, it was announced that Ford, as part of the Democratic Independent and Green Group (DIGG), had agreed to lend support the

Scottish National Party The Scottish National Party (SNP; sco, Scots National Pairty, gd, Pàrtaidh Nàiseanta na h-Alba ) is a Scottish nationalist and social democratic political party in Scotland. The SNP supports and campaigns for Scottish independence from ...

(SNP) council group on a confidence and supply basis.

References

External links

profile
at Aberdeenshire council {{DEFAULTSORT:Ford, Martin Living people Date of birth unknown 20th-century Scottish botanists Scottish Green councillors Scottish Liberal Democrat councillors Place of birth missing (living people) Alumni of the University of Wales Year of birth missing (living people) Councillors in Aberdeenshire 21st-century Scottish botanists