St. George's has hired a controversial US tourism expert to head a planning team tasked with waking up the Old Town, which faces fresh competition from the neighbouring US Navy base lands after they are returned to Bermuda this year.

The man is Mr. Bert Winterbottom, who clashed with Tourism Minister the Hon.

C.V. (Jim) Woolridge last year over ways to boost the tourism industry.

Mr. Winterbottom runs the Maryland planning consultantcy firm of LDR International.

Together with the local urban design firm of Stanley G. Kennedy & Associates, he will develop a St. George's heritage plan to "bring history to life'' while ensuring a better quality of life for its people.

St. George's Mayor the Wor. Henry Hayward made the announcement at a news conference at the Town Hall yesterday.

He hoped the move would prove to be the "most significant decision the Corporation has made in many years''.

The project was not undertaken earlier due to lack of funding, he said. But the Corporation was finally able to launch it with a $50,000 donation from the Bank of Bermuda.

Mr. Hayward said the Corporation of St. George's hoped to garner enough private donations to fully fund the $200,000 plan.

Among areas the planning team will address are the long-vacant Club Med hotel property and the impact of the transfer of the USNAS properties, Mr. Hayward said.

"A hotel (at the Club Med site) which is in keeping with the town could be the most attractive property on the Island, '' he said. He hoped the reviving of St. George's would encourage potential investors in a new hotel at the site.

He said the Corporation was concerned about the potential for US base land development plans siphoning off business in much the same manner as Somerset residents complained of when Wedco redeveloped the neighbouring Dockyard several years ago.

However, he said the fact the two plans were being worked on side-by-side presented an excellent opportunity to work together with Government on ensuring St. George's benefits from any new developments at the base.

Other areas LDR/SGK will study include transport, pedestrian environments, visitors' perceptions and expectations, heritage buildings, new business opportunities, streetscape, sewage and water systems.

Mr. Hayward said that unlike Williamsburg, Virginia, St. George's "has the original product''. He said the goal was to enhance the historical assets of St. George's and boost the business side.

The first phase of the development plan is slated to be completed in three months and will involve public meetings, interviews with community leaders, market, retail and urban design assessments.

The second phase should be completed by the end of July.

Mr. Hayward said that unlike previous plans dating back to 1977, the end result will be the development of concrete retail, urban design/market consumer research strategies and an implementation plan.

The team has already drafted a map of the town as it is now.

And the first public meeting is scheduled for tomorrow night at Penno's Wharf at 8 p.m.

"The town of St. George's is a place of great history and her people represent generations of cultural diversity and experiences,'' Mr. Hayward said. "These two qualities of the town and the people have grown together side by side and have made St. George's a place with a rich and distinct character.'' Mr. Kennedy, a past St. George's resident and internationally known architect, said he was looking at the project from the point of view of the town's uniqueness and the need to wake-up some aspects that were "asleep''. It would be a very broad-based plan, he added.

Asked what he envisioned for St. George's, Mr. Winterbottom, who made his views known during a controversial speech to the Chamber of Commerce at its annual meeting last June and to the developers of the Bermuda Tourism Strategic Plan, said he would be approaching the project "with no pre-conceived notions at all''.

He was also going to exercise "caution'', he said, so as not to repeat mistakes made by other towns which had embarked on similar courses.

During his speech to the Chamber, he had said Bermuda was losing its primary hotel-visitor market "due to its own actions or oversights'' and it could not "rest on its laurels without change and expect to be in business a decade from now''.

Mr. Winterbottom said Bermuda would not get back to the boom days of the 1980s without major changes, including positive price value, better hotel service, more eco-tourism, a golf course at the old naval annex, a makeover of the Hamilton waterfront and the Back of Town.

St. George's, an "under-utilised treasure'', especially could do with "upgrading and image enhancement'', he said. The Old Town could be "on par with Dockyard'', he said.

But Mr. Woolridge had retorted the next day: "I think he's looking for a job.'' The Minister also accused him of "misleading'' locals with his figures and "making no constructive suggestions apart form saying St. George's and the bases need something done''.