CORPORATION tax levied on St. George's residents will be abolished if the United Bermuda Party win power in this year's General Election, Opposition Leader Dr. Grant Gibbons pledged yesterday.

Dr. Gibbons also promised to keep a fully-staffed police station in St. George's and to redevelop the former Club Med site as a hotel and tourism site.

New UBP candidates for St. George's, Kim Swan and Kenneth Bascome, joined Dr. Gibbons as the Opposition launched a triple-pledge election offensive in the constituency of Premier Jennifer Smith.

Dr. Gibbons said St. George's residents paid proportionally more tax than other Bermuda residents, as they paid land tax to the Government and a further amount to the Corporation of St. George's.

"For residents, this is a burden that's difficult to justify," said Dr. Gibbons yesterday. "The next UBP Government will remove that burden.

"We will work with the Corporation to eliminate the Corporation tax for residents, to ensure that the revenue shortfall is made up and to see to it that the Corporation is able to continue its good work on behalf of the town and the people who live and work here."

The police station's future has been a political hot potato since the Progressive Labour Government first announced it was to close and then made a U-turn, when Premier Smith declared that it would be renovated to stay open as a substation.

If the UBP reclaimed power, Sen. Swan said, the police station would not be downgraded.

"There will be no question of moving most of the staff to Southside and leaving behind a small sub-station manned by a couple of policemen during the day.

"The St. George's Police Station will stay, it will be fully staffed and it will be open 24 hours a day, seven days a week. We believe that this is completely justified by the importance of St. George's as Bermuda's second city, a busy tourist destination.

"We all know that crime is a problem in St. George's, a problem that the Smith Government has failed to get to grips with. In the new UBP, we find it hard to understand how responsible people could even have dreamed that the way to fight crime in the Old Town might be to move the crime fighters to a location ten minutes away, even in a speeding car."

Sen. Swan said he also supported a police presence in Southside, where the population is growing.

St. George's Alderman Mr. Bascome promised the site of the former Club Med would be redevoloped as a hotel and mixed use tourism site, should the UBP win the election.

"The Club Med site is one of the most beautiful in Bermuda," said Mr. Bascome. "It might have been a gamble to put a hotel there back in the '60s when the St. George's infrastructure was much weaker than it is now, but no longer.

"If it means we have to tear down the old building the Holiday Inn put up and start again, that is what we're going to do."