17 December 2023 , 13:13
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Dubai's billionaire ruler has submitted plans to build a new mansion on his sprawling estate in Scotland, just weeks after an extension was signed off by local planners.
Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum, a friend of the late Queen, is seeking to build an 11-bedroom lodge on the 63,000-acre Inverinate Estate in Wester Ross. His estate on the north shore of Loch Duich already has helipads, two large homes, a 16-bed hunting lodge, a pool and a gym. As well as permission for an extension to one of the homes, which has 17 bedrooms.
The new lodgings, if approved, will be constructed next to the 17-bed Benula Lodge, which was completed in 2021 at a reported cost of £2.4million, according to documents lodged with Highland Council. A design statement included with the application, submitted to Highland Council in November, said: "The owners of Inverinate Estate typically travel in large groups of immediate and extended family and friends. In recent years their travel to Inverinate has been limited by lack of accommodation. This new application seeks to create residential accommodation for the use of the owners, their family and their guests in order they may enjoy more frequent and extended visits to Inverinate."
Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid (right), Vice President and Ruler of Dubai, on holiday in Scotland (@khalifasaeed / Instagram)Locals have not been best pleased with previous plans and one application was the subject of more than 30 complaints from locals because the house was just 20 metres away from a neighbour, reports MailOnline. Highland councillors turned down the application but the decision was overturned following an appeal to the Scottish Government. The application was green-lit on the condition that the sheikh's company made a £30,000 payment towards local affordable housing.
In response to the amendment, one local said: "That sum of money is most probably what one of his wives would consider spending on one designer handbag." Sheikh Mohammed has an estimated £14billion fortune and has owned the estate for more than 20 years. The sheikh is not free from controversy, with allegations that one of his around 30 children was being detained against her will.
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His daughter Princess Latifa was reportedly kept in captivity in the United Arab Emirates, of whom the Sheikh is vice-president, for around three years. She wrote on Instagram during that time: "My father ordered his men to 'beat me until they kill me.' They didn't allow me to travel or have any freedom of choice at all, I had to take it for myself." She was eventually picked up by international waters and returned to Dubai. But her sister, Princess Shamsa, hasn't been seen since she was taken off the streets of Cambridge in 2000 by men working for her father and flown back to Dubai on a private jet.
Sheikh Mohammed is the founder of the successful Godolphin horse-racing stable and was on friendly terms with the late Queen. In 2019, he received a trophy from the queen after one of his horses won a race at Royal Ascot. He met with King Charles ahead of the Queen's funeral at a Buckingham Palace reception.