With pressure growing on Bermuda's housing market, the role of the Bermuda Development Applications Board (DAB) is more vital than ever. But the DAB's new line-up is more than capable to handle the heat, the DAB's new chairman said yesterday.

"This is perhaps one of the best boards we have ever had," said Chair Robin Spencer-Arscott, a nine-year DAB veteran and former deputy chairman.

Mr. Spencer-Arscott also had enthusiastic words for the board's newest appointee, Amanda Outerbridge, who is a former director of Bermuda's environmental and architectural preservation group, the National Trust.

"The National Trust is always a watchdog over any of our decisions and they do a great job," said Mr. Spencer-Arscott, who works in the insurance industry.

"Of course, we can't have someone who is actually in the Trust on the Board, but to have Amanda who has ten years experience inside the Trust is just great," said Mr. Spencer-Arscott who said the "hard-working" DAB meets weekly to review all of the Island's development proposals.

The list of new appointees also includes the former head of the Bermuda Land Development Co., Carl Musson.

"We try to have a cross section of people," Mr. Spencer Arscott said, adding that the DAB's membership stretches across the banking, insurance and construction industries as well as the legal profession. "But there is one single common thread ? a love for Bermuda."

On a more sombre note, Mr. Spencer-Arscott, commented on the deterioration he's seen in Bermuda's environment.

"Just today I was looking at a book a Bermuda photographs from the late 1800s to the1930s, and you should see some of the landscapes, the masses of cedar trees," he said. "It was so different from today, yet that was only 70 years ago."

The appointment of new board members is made by the Minister of the Environment, who heads up the Department of Planning, but the sitting board also makes appointee recommendations.