The Bermuda Environmental and Sustainability Taskforce (BEST) has criticised the timescale allowed by Government for public objections to proposed Bermuda Plan amendments.

This morning the Draft Bermuda Plan 2008 Tribunal will hear the Department of Planning's proposed amendments to the new zoning and Planning Statement.

However the public has only been given a week's notice to make counter-objections to more than 52 pages of amendments and recommendations.

A Government Notice was placed in the Official Gazette last Friday (April 23) stating: "In accordance with rules 6 (2) and 6 (3) (a) of the Development and Planning (Tribunal Procedure) Rules 1992, the Tribunal hereby notifies that the Director will submit that the Tribunal should accept the Department's recommendation for the objections and representations and acknowledge the invalid and withdrawn objections listed below."

The objections are being presented at a public Tribunal session from 10 a.m. this morning at the Salvation Army Citadel in North Street, Hamilton.

The Notice also states "full details of the objections" are available at the Planning Department offices.

The objections are also available on the Planning website, however, on reading through them, consultation of further documents is needed in some cases.

Stuart Hayward, BEST chairman, said yesterday: "It's very difficult for anyone to understand from this document what is going on.

"There are pages of proposed amendments and policy changes, some of which may be good or bad, but they require an extraordinary amount of research and diligence to discover what they are."

He gave Chapter Ten, Coastal Development, Issue 003 as an example, which states 'Delete policy COA.5 Foreshore Licence'.

"How do you find out what policy is being deleted?," he asked.

"You have to go to the original document, and then you find out the policy that has been deleted is the licence. You have to go to the Draft Bermuda Plan 2008 statement which many people might not have at hand, or pay $20 to the Department to get a copy.

"This then refers you to Section Three of the Foreshore Licences Act and any subsequent revisions, and the APC3, and this is just for a one-liner that has been removed.

"Almost every aspect of these policy changes requires some kind of drilling down to the bottom of it, just to find out what exactly it means.

"But people have only been given seven days. Two are on the weekend, one was the day the Notice was published and one the day it was printed, so you have four days to go through some very intricate policy changes."

Mr. Hayward said: "It just means it is unreasonable to expect people to do their own standards of research, to know whether or not to make counter objections to the policy changes, in this time.

"The public has only had a week. Going through 52 pages and, in many cases, other documents, it is a very complex process and there's only four working days in which to do it, for the public to access documents at the Planning Department."

He said: "There should be an extension of time. People have to examine these policy changes to find out whether or not they want to make a counter objection.

"It's about the process. The process deprives ordinary citizens of a reasonable amount of time to do due diligence."