Hamilton Mayor Jay Bluck said yesterday he would have preferred that Minister Wayne Perinchief raised development concerns before criticising the Corporation in the House of Assembly.

Mr. Perinchief told the House on Friday that the Corporation?s waterfront plan ?would take up a lot of the harbour front, impact negatively on the marine environment and change the face of Hamilton more than the seven-storey building HSBC wants to build?.

Mr. Perinchief, who is Minister for National Drug Control, questioned the stance of what he termed ?business magnates in the Corporation? when it comes to ensuring that Hamilton develops in an appropriate way. He compared the international HSBC bank to ?a five-hundred-pound gorilla in your front yard? and said

?I believe the uniqueness of Hamilton should be maintained. We?re already at saturation point. Do we want to become Hong Kong? I think not. The problem began with HSBC coming here.?

Responding to these remarks yesterday, Mr. Bluck said: ?When you make comments in the House you have privilege but it would be very useful if he came to talk to us. He made some fairly strong comments about the Corporation having not spoken to us, but my door is always open.?

He added: ?Mr. Perinchief is very much against Bermuda expanding but I don?t know how we can stand still. I don?t know how in this modern world we can continue to provide jobs for our young people and a reasonable standard of living for everyone if we stand still without development of one kind or another.?

But he stressed: ?I?m as hot as he (Mr. Perinchief) is to try to preserve our open spaces and not keep putting traffic on our roads.?

The waterfront plan advocates moving Hamilton Docks to an as-yet-unspecified location out of town in order to beautify the harbour area.

However, Mr. Bluck dismissed the Minister?s suggestion that the docks should be relocated to Morgan?s Point with goods shipped in to the city via a dock for smaller vessels at Spanish Point.

?If he wants to add 20 percent to the cost of goods then he can go ahead and do it. That?s at least what it would cost to double handle the goods. We as a Corporation would look very sceptically at Morgans?s Point or Marginal Wharf in St. George?s (for the new docks) as the costs would be so high,? he said.

Mr. Perinchief also spoke of the importance of more brainstorming, fresh ideas and joint planning saying: ?We cannot allow the Corporation of Hamilton to operate independently from the Government and Corporation of St. George?s.?

Mr. Bluck said of this: ?I?ve got no objections to talking to anyone. We really encourage that.?

He revealed that he is set to have discussions in the near future with what he described as a north Hamilton business group about plans for that area.