Last March, I said the Government's request for public comment on the plan for a hotel at Southlands would be nothing but an empty exercise.

Today, I can say without fear of contradiction that this was indeed the case. The Brown Government's verbal commitment to sign a Special Development Order for Southlands continues a reprehensible trend in which the public is either taken for granted or simply ignored.

When it comes to Bermuda's economic and social development, this autocratic style of government is not acceptable to the people of Bermuda.

We cannot have major hotel development decisions made behind closed doors. The ramifications for such decisions are far-reaching, particularly for the neighbourhoods close to these developments.

As things stand, the reality of the impending Southlands SDO is that no matter what people say outside the confines of the Cabinet Office, their views are not taken into account when decisions are made.

Nothing said by the United Bermuda Party, nothing said by environmental activists, nothing said by the people of Warwick, nothing said by anybody makes any difference.

The reality is that nobody was ever going to be allowed to stand in the way of whatever deal Dr. Brown struck with the Jumeirah hotel group. Let's be clear about what will happen: The SDO enabling the development of Southlands will change the face of Warwick forever.

Along with the recent SDO for the nearby Golden Hind property, the residents of South Shore Road, Dunscombe Road, and Rocklands Estate will see one of the largest tracts of open space in Warwick wiped off the map.

Some 800 employees ¿ many of them foreign workers ¿ and up to 1,500 tourists will crowd into the area alongside the 6,000 area residents. There will be new demand for housing, and upward pressure on rents. There will be much more traffic. The traffic jams in Paget in recent weeks demonstrate just how close we are right now to permanent traffic congestion, especially on roads coming from the west end of the Island.

These changes will come down the pipe once the SDO is signed.

The Southlands-Golden Hind developments, moreover, will create a hotel strip that the people of Warwick fought hard against more than ten years ago.

The big difference between then and now is that the current government is taking the people of Warwick for granted. They have not given them the courtesy to meet and share their ideas and to listen to their concerns. Before addressing our concerns further, I want to make one things very clear: The United Bermuda Party supports new hotel development. We support initiatives to improve or redevelop existing hotel properties so that we can succeed as a premier tourism destination.

Tourism must become the fortified second pillar of Bermuda's economy, where it can generate jobs and opportunities for our young people. But as the Shadow Minister of the Environment, I do not believe we have to gobble up large amounts of our precious open spaces to succeed in tourism.

We must look out for Bermuda's garden state because it is basic to who we are as a people and what we are a tourism destination.

We need to get smart about how we use this island. Right now, we are making important decisions about land use without any understanding of what is the best use of the land going forward, without a realistic plan based on up-to-date growth projections for population, employment, housing, traffic, business and land use.

The Bermuda Development Plan has not been updated by the PLP since they were elected to office in 1998. It means we are working off a plan that was put together more than 15 years ago, when conditions were dramatically different.

The failure to update the plan is a disservice to the people of Bermuda and an abdication of public responsibility. Without a useful plan in place, the current government is making decisions based on short-term thinking, short-term political considerations, without any reference to the totality of the Island's needs. It is a recipe for a mess.

People sense this. It is why there is so much anxiety and protest against the Southlands plan. The proposed use of the land makes no sense when open space is so rare and brownfield sites are so plentiful. The need for a Bermuda plan has never been greater.

With an up-to-date plan, we can give ourselves a better chance for a sustainable future where we achieve a balance of land uses that keeps our economy strong while protecting our precious way of life. As I've said before, we are flying blind when it comes to making sound, well-informed decisions about how our land is used. It's time we put an end to this unacceptable state of affairs.

To that end, I am calling on the Government to stop issuing Special Development Orders until Bermuda's Land Development Plan is updated and approved by the people of this country.

I believe that Southlands is a marker that says we are at a fork in the road as a country. If we don't move to preserve the land, we stand to lose a quality of life that has always been with us. Certainly that will be the case for Warwick residents living in the immediate area. Preservation of our open spaces is about keeping Bermuda beautiful. It's about preserving the Island as we know it, not just for ourselves, but for generations of Bermudians not yet born.

Cole Simons IS a United Bermuda Party MP and Shadow Minister for the Environment