The planned $1 million-plus revamp of Dolphin Quest's Southampton facility will offer the animals greater protection and new ways to evacuate them from storms, the company said yesterday.

It put in an application to planners last week and hopes to begin work in August with a possible November finish date.

However environmentalists have slammed it as heavy handed and unnecessary.

Dolphin Quest needed new methods of evacuation following the debacle during Hurricane Gert in September when dolphins were battered by loose walkways before escaping into the sea. Two are still missing.

A winch to lift dolphins from the water and straight on to trucks will eliminate the need to stretcher them long distances across the beach during emergencies. But campaigner Graeme Outerbridge attacked plans to concrete a 500 yard stretch along the beach to allow trucks to reach the winch.

Dolphin Quest reveals plans During Gert, the beach was washed away making it impossible to reach the stricken dolphins.

He said: "This is a heavy handed construction project for something which could probably be solved through other solutions they put forward in their application.

"This concrete is very uncharacteristic for South Shore which is pristine.'' The road will be protected by boulders and sunken steel.

He said Dolphin Quest's catamaran with its tank designed to transport dolphins around the shoreline to the Dockyard Keep before storms hit made substantial investment unnecessary.

And he said the training and release programme, in which dolphins would be set free before storms hit and then collected later, also removed the need for major building work.

The revamp will include a widened entrance in the bolder perimeter of the pen, traversed by a bridge, to allow the catamaran to pick up the dolphins before storms hit.

Developer David Summers of Bermuda-Caribbean Engineering Consultants defended the retention of floating walkways which injured the dolphins when they broke loose in Hurricane Gert's storm swell.

He explained that floating walkways, rather than fixed structures, were needed to ensure trainers and the public were at the same level as the dolphins -- whatever the tide level.

He said: "The biggest failure we had was the floating walkways which could not be readily dismantled because they had six large bolts which had to be undone. This is changed in the new design.'' Mr. Summers said priority in a storm would be to move the dolphins then disassemble the walkway and he denied it would make sense to locate to the more sheltered North Shore. He said the reef there was not a natural environment for the dolphins.

He said of the current site: "It's the most advantageous location in the whole of Bermuda.'' Mr. Outerbridge said Dolphin Quest should be made to honour their license terms which included a pledge to clear the Southampton site of storm damage which he said was still strewn with debris.

And he slammed the firm for operating as a business at Dockyard without permission.

Dolphin Quest spokesman Chris Heslop said the firm had put in a retrospective planning application.

He said: "It's nothing we have hidden, we were always up front about it.'' And Mr. Heslop denied the company had damaged the Dockyard keep by fitting equipment to the historic walls.

Mr. Heslop said: "Everything we have done has been in accordance with advice from the Maritime Museum.'' Revamp: An artist's drawing of plans to revamp the Dolphin Quest tourist attraction in Southampton.