SHAME, shame, shame! I did not expect to say this again about Minister Patrice Minorsafter the fiasco with the Salvation Army shelter but I must say this takes the cake!

The Minister's recent announcement that the Bermuda Hospitals Board will be allowed to build on ten acres of sacrosanct public land in the Botanical Gardens goes against all notions of sustainable development being put forth by this present Government.

As has been pointed out by numerous other writers, these ten acres of public lands will not be replaced by 14 acres from the present site as they will remain in the hands of the Bermuda Hospitals Board to do as they please in the future. The Minister is misleading the public here.

Go up to the top parking lot on Berry Hill Road and look at the dirty roofs and state of disrepair of the nurses quarters and old hospital buildings (shame on the Hospitals Board or Works & Engineering to allow these buildings to fall into this state in the first place!).

These buildings need to be replaced and this would be a perfect location for a new hospital. In any major city in the world, new hospital buildings are built right next to old ones without much disruption. I am very familiar with Massachusetts General in Boston which just completed a ten-plus-storey building next to the main hospital.

It can be done without destroying open space. It is disingenuous of the Minister to say that building on the same site will affect the health of patients and staff, causing respiratory conditions, asthma and infection risks. These are scare tactics to justify their decision to build on open space. Again, new hospitals are built in cities elsewhere while providing services in the old ones.

The Minister goes on to say that building on the same site will take the present building beyond its useful life by three years. What is going to happen in 2012? Will the building suddenly give up the ghost and disappear? No, of course not!

There are already problems with the air-conditioning and other aspects of the plant which can be remedied on an interim basis to keep the building going. The Minister is coming up with ridiculous reasons why the plant won't last another three years so as to justify her decision to desecrate the Botanical Gardens.

As the Sustainable Development Plan was a Government initiative in the first place, you would have expected Cabinet to set an example for the Bermuda populace. Yet this Minister seems to be misrepresenting the true situation in order to justify Cabinet's decision to build on public lands, land which was set aside for all Bermudians and for future generations of Bermudians.

As a taxpayer having to pay for a portion of the extra $50 million-plus for the completion of the new Berkeley school as a result of the mismanagement by the present Government of the project, I have no problem paying for an extra $100 million to save open space in the Botanical Gardens. Mature, old trees are to be wiped out by bulldozers so this Government can supposedly save a bit of money! It is entirely worth the extra expense to build on the present site.

As for the comment made by the Premier at the last Sustainable Meeting that 'if there's a tree that needs sustaining, you may find that tree next to your hospital bed in the future', one wonders what the Cabinet really knows about constructing any building at all!

The cost would be enormous to work the building around existing trees and the idea is just ludicrous. Spin, spin, spin! I urge the general public to write to your MPs, each Cabinet Minister, the members of the Bermuda Hospitals Board and protest against this desecration of YOUR public land. Let's save this open space for the future generations of Bermudians.

* * *

Dear Sir/Madam,

AS a Bermudian first and then as a neighbour of the development, I strenuously object to the proposed development at the Loughlands property. The land was zoned as tourist accommodation and now open space is being turned into a congested development.

You are allowing every inch of land in Bermuda to be built on with no regard to the previous zoning. There will be little open space left for our children. It is a fact that there is plenty of housing for all Bermudians but not enough 'affordable' housing.

Your Government needs to establish what it, in fact, means when it says "affordable housing". Condos, at $500,000-$600,000, are not especially "affordable" to a lot of people and will require both adult members of the family to have good paying jobs.

You are allowing the desecration of open space and over-development that will result in another 96 cars on the road. South Road, by 7.30 am in the morning, is already backed up to Horizons and beyond. What about another 96 cars trying to get onto South Road in the morning?

Has anyone considered this? Something needs to be done about the convergence of traffic all at one point at the Paget traffic lights! Why does your Government not look at this problem?

As no plans for the development have been made available to the general public, there is a perception that this Government is hiding something. I thought the PLP Government was supposed to be a transparent and open government?

As for the Sustainable Development initiative and the announcement of the new Hospital being built on the Botanical Gardens, this Government will go down in history as the one which destroyed more open space than any other Government before. I am sure this letter will have no effect as your Government has rail-roaded this development through under a Special Development Order but if there is an objection period to the development, please consider this as one.

Yours faithfully,

@TIMES-18:Tripping over land mines

ARRIVING back in Bermuda after however short an absence from her once glittering shores must elicit much the same feeling in each of us these days.

It is rather like an astronaut slowly, silently peacefully nearing beautiful blue-green mother earth ? only to find himself after the jolt of landing and popping open the capsule's door, in Southern Lebanon . . . Worst of all he is surrounded by recently deposited, unexploded ordinance. Everywhere except in our case ? landing in Bermuda ? we are stumbling into and tripping over land mines of a political nature: Government-generated cluster bomb-hurling devices have left nothing we hold dear, no corner of Bermuda, safe. If the intention is to discourage all but the fervent supporters of 'Independence' from returning home, they are certainly on course.

If we look at the recent cluster of insane decisions on our behalf ? surely topping the list is the announcement, the new hospital WILL be built in the Botanical Gardens. At a cost to us of $500 MILLION ? slap in the middle of the only centrally located green lung remaining, close to Hamilton. (Has anyone really taken note of the air quality measurements at the Foot of the Lane?)

What neoplastic idiocy is afflicting this administration? And what will become of us? Certainly if this goes through we shall collectively suffer an increased incidence of even more than our fare share of lung-related disorders, ranging from severe asthma to overt lung cancer, as we witness the progressive deterioration of air quality in Hamilton.

Whatever happened to taking responsibility for the people we elected to govern? All complain, some loudly, but most slide back, accepting what they know and see to be wrong.

Government, on the other hand, charts their course, tightens their grip while appointing toothless round table committees. Then we are told by the Health Minister ? of all people ? to just "get over" our objections!

Just so we get an idea of the real value for money we are getting with the estimated $500 MILLION, measured globally that is, not in "! This is Bermuda !" terms: $500 million is the amount pledged by the UN donor countries, to rebuild the Palestinian Territories ? $900 million (the minimum expected, corruption-corrected figure for the hospital) is the amount pledged by the Donor Countries to rebuild Lebanon.

Here are a couple of rational uses for $500 MILLION of our tax dollars, which really will improve our health, and not the very reverse . . . in some bizarre, self-fulfilling function for the new hospital.

1. Buy a fleet of spanking new air ambulances, complete with top-notch pilots and medical staff . . . at least ten would be well within this budget, and block book space at the Lahey, Mass General, and anywhere else that boasts huge shopping facilities in the near vicinity.

2. Buy state-of-the-art scrubbers for the incinerator and Belco stacks.

3. Actually, get rid of the oil-fuelled generators and purchase wind and wave turbines. Give them to the Belco shareholders, which should keep them smiling for a while

4. Buy a few thousand solar panels, and give one to each household.

5. Send Gary to a prolonged, all-inclusive, course in environmentally-friendly energy generation in Scandinavia and Germany. Throw in ALL the perks.

6. Buy an electric car for every household in Bermuda and export every other mode of transport to some other developing country (courtesy of the Department of Tourism if you like, because if we were to spend this money in this way, the tourists would return like bees to blossoms full of nectar ? guaranteed, eco-Bda would become destination number one, and we would all be friendly, headache and stress free.

7. Finally, as a bonus, send the slash-scorch-and-burn roadside crews somewhere they can be truly happy and fulfilled in their work. Perhaps the Israelis would like to employ them on their border with Lebanon.

To use the pseudo-Shakespearean turn of phrase now trade-marking one William A. Scott: Bricks and mortar do not a good hospital make! And please someone remind him that contrary to his headline statement in Wednesday's , he need not trouble to tell the architects to incorporate the Botanical Garden's "fauna" into the new hospital . . . it is already abundant in the current one ? bin there for years. I assume he meant the "flora".

But then assuming anything about what this Premier says or does is a risky undertaking . . . unless you are assuming the worst.

@TIMES-18:Let's tell the Government what want

WHAT on earth is going on in this island of ours, which most of us, at least, love with a passion? We have a Premier who signs his e-mails "P", no doubt with the idea of future President (or substitute the "L" in Alex with an "R" and what do we have? A Rex!)

The said "P" has the audacity to tell 15,000-plus voters, seeking a referendum on Independence, that they don't know what they are talking about ? most of those voters being infinitely better able to discuss the matter sensibly than he is and who then, under pressure on the new hospital, tells us that we could have trees growing up by our hospital beds!

Maybe it would be a very good idea to have the Wellness Institute close to town.

It is perhaps opportune that we have yesterday heard that Mr. Blair's spin and two-facedness has come home to roost. Perhaps, also, politicians in the UK (and dare one say it, in Bermuda) will learn from his mistakes and do the honourable thing.

It is high time we all started to be positive about the future and I am not talking about hundreds of millions of dollars on things with which a very large proportion of the population disagree (although that has to be dealt with as well), I am talking about this constant harping on the past; particularly slavery and race of which there are two proponents, one of whom writes for your paper and the other, the other.)

There are many, many people on this island ? of all races, colours and beliefs ? who are sick and tired of their constant references to the appalling past of British colonial slavery (notwithstanding the fact that slavery began in a number of countries long before the Brits got into the game ? and still practise it). The younger generation largely does not even want to know what you are talking about.

Then, of course, there is the dreaded "race card" about which a recent correspondent wrote at boring length. It matters not who spawned the words "race card", they must be deleted from our vocabulary so that Bermudians of whatever background can begin to live in peace and harmony. We must all learn from our mistakes from the past but constant griping over them will not improve matters nor, I suspect, will it save the Government of the day from the ignominy that it richly deserves.

There are a couple of senior politicians who should be exonerated from this diatribe, but unfortunately a couple of good apples will always be overcome by the bad ones in the barrel. Come, Bermudians, let us start telling our Government what we really want instead of what they, regrettably, think we want.

Mr. Derrick Burgess, in comments following his elevation to Minister of Labour, Home Affairs & Public Safety, did not mention slavery (or use the race card) once. Keep it up, Mr. Burgess.