Housing Minister Ashfield DeVent wisely made a decision last year to withdraw plans to add 32 homes in the Mary Victoria Road area and to consult with residents.

At the time, he was, with good reason, facing massive opposition to the proposals. Already fairly crowded and having seen a rise in crime and other problems, the residents, many of whom held long leases on their homes, were reluctant to see that many more homes come in.

Mr. DeVent?s problems were different. Under huge pressure to do something about the housing crisis, the properties, which are owned by the Bermuda Housing Corporation, offered a relatively easy solution on an Island where developable land is expensive and rare.

Mr. DeVent then met with the residents, heard what they had to say, and went away.

Some of the longstanding issues they raised about the neighbourhood were dealt with. And Mr. DeVent then wrote to the residents in April this year to say that plans would be submitted for the construction of 20 units in the area.

Subsequently it was claimed he had consulted with the residents.

Now Mr. DeVent is in a lot of trouble, as yesterday?s stormy Press conference and the events two weeks ago showed. Mr. DeVent said he had consulted, and in the now well-known phrase, 188 residents said he had not.

This is not, contrary to Premier Alex Scott?s assertion yesterday, a question of semantics.

Consultation means more than one meeting followed by a letter a year later saying what you have decided to do. It is, surely, a commitment to involve the other party in a discussion, in which proposals are made and discussed, and it is to be hoped, a consensus is reached.

There will inevitably be times when a consensus or an agreement cannot be achieved and a decision-maker has to make tough choices.

But Mr. DeVent failed to do this. He paid lip service to the idea of consultation and then made his decision. The fact that the plans were scaled back from 32 units to 20 is commendable, but in the circumstances, it is hardly surprising that the residents are angry and that the Opposition is making hay out of the issue.

If Mr. DeVent and his officials had gone the full mile, let alone the extra mile, with the residents, then he could say today that he had done his best to come up with a solution for everyone, but had been unsuccessful and now he had to do something to ease the housing crisis.

No doubt he would still be unpopular in the neighbourhood, but at least no one could deny he had tried his best.

Mr. DeVent has one of the toughest jobs in Government. He must make decisions that will help some people at the same time that they anger others. He must ask some people to make sacrifices for the greater good of the community. To do so requires equal doses of caring and determination, and above all, infinite patience.

And it requires that he must face people and give them news they don?t want to hear.

Mr. DeVent can be quite eloquent on the question of housing. But he needs to keep his promises too.