The Bermuda National Trust has objected to Paragon Trust's plans to build a five-storey office building on East Broadway.

The Paragon Trust submitted the application on January 24, 2004, but the Bermuda National Trust was the only object by the final day of objection, Friday.

"The Trust notices that listed building protection on number 22 (Crow Lane) has recently been removed," the Trust's Environmental Conservation Officer Dorcas Roberts said.

"This is one of several old buildings along East Broadway which are significant as they protect the original townscape and architectural scale of the entrance to Hamilton."

"The listing on this building served to protect the architectural and the historic of the buildings of East Broadway," she said. "However, it seems that they are now being whittled away and the approach to Hamilton is becoming a corridor of offices".

Mrs. Roberts said the neighbouring building to the proposed building site, the Queen of the East, was "a significant historic landmark and a Grade One listed building".

"In fact number 22 (Crow Lane) was once part of the same property and was built by the same man George Darrell in the 1700s," she said.

"This building is extremely important as one of the earliest merchant's houses built on the waterside before the City of Hamilton was even created.

"The construction of a five-storey office building will ultimately impact on the Queen of the East and detract from its setting. Additionally, the construction work necessary at this site will pose a physical threat to the Queen of the East," she said.

The Trust questioned Environment Minister Neletha Butterfield's "discretion to lift listed building protection arbitrarily" and the Development Applications Board was asked to consider their points when determining the outcome of this application.

Director of Planning Rudolph Hollis wrote back to the National Trust on the same day to let them know they had received the objection.

Their objection was "now being reviewed by the appropriate departments," the Director said.