The recession may be behind a surge in development applications this past year to start up day care centres or nursing homes.

Development Applications Board chairman Mr. Neville Conyers guessed that more people were having to work full time to make ends meet, and, therefore, needed day care for their children.

Mr. Conyers said he had noted an increase in applications for day care facilities more than for nursing homes.

He estimated about a dozen such applications had landed on DAB members' desks over the last year.

But if the applications were in any way detrimental to the surrounding environment or went against the zoning of the land, they would be turned down, he said.

This was the case in Mrs. Sybil Young's bid to change the use of a residence at 4 Rural Drive to a nursing home for the elderly.

The DAB refused the June 3, 1992 application on the grounds it constituted a social development which was not permitted in areas zoned Garden District in the Bermuda Development Plan.

The DAB added insufficient information on the development had been submitted in any event.

Mrs. Candice Trott's application of last September 25 for a children's nursery on Princess Street, Hamilton was also turned down.

The DAB said the nursery was "not compatible'' with the residential use of the area would be injurious to the amenity of the neighbourhood by reason of the generation of noise.

But an application last October 2 by Mrs. Barbara Trott and Mrs. Pauletta Furbert for a day care centre at the Seventh Day Adentist Church on North Shore Road in Pembroke was given the go-ahead.

The DAB gave approval on condition the centre only enrolled 30 children between the ages of two and five. Hours of operation were restricted to 7.30 a.m. to 6 p.m.