Government should prepare to be challenged in the courts over the way it compiled a new planning blueprint for the Island, according to the Shadow Environment Minister.

Cole Simons told the House of Assembly on Friday that professionals within the planning and development industry were considering seeking a judicial review in relation to the "whole process" of how the Bermuda Plan 2008 was put together.

"This document is supposed to be the people's document and it flies in the face of natural justice," he said. "I will lend my support to this so-called judicial review."

The final version of the Bermuda Plan 2008 was tabled in the House of Assembly on May 28 and provides zonings for land use and development policies for the whole Island, outside of the City of Hamilton.

It is the first such blueprint since 1992 and has taken years to prepare; a four-month public consultation was held on the document and a tribunal was convened last year to hear objections to the draft version.

Mr. Simons said amendments were authorised and made to the draft plan by the Department of Planning after it was tabled in the House of Assembly by former Environment Minister El James.

He said at that stage only MPs or the Minister should have been able to make changes. "The process has been compromised," alleged Mr. Simons.

The UBP MP said objectors who appeared before the tribunal had no opportunity to appeal any recommendation of the panel and that was unfair.

Environment Minister Glenn Blakeney said the plan was put together after "the widest possible consultation". "There was no way at all that the integrity of the process was compromised," he insisted.

He said Mr. Simons was "impugning reprehensible motive" on the process when people were given "an innumerable amount of opportunity" to have input.

Other issues raised by Mr. Simons included industrial sites encroaching on protected lands, high-rise buildings, problems with quarries and the need to protect beaches from development.

Earlier, Mr. Blakeney told the House that the blueprint was the fifth development plan for the Island and the vision for it was to "manage Bermuda's natural and built environment resources and development effectively and sustainably in a way that best provides for the environmental, economic and social needs of the community".

Government backbencher Wayne Perinchief said he wasn't happy that the plan failed to look at the problems which would be created by global warming and the problems with drainage areas, such as Mill Creek and the wetlands.

He said residential properties were being lost to foreign ownership "at an increasing rate" and that was causing Government to build high-density accommodation such as at Loughlands in Paget.

The debate on the Bermuda Plan took place after the Opposition failed in a bid to get it delayed for another week.

UBP MP John Barritt pointed to a rule of the House which states that seven days must elapse after an item has been tabled before it can be debated.

Speaker Stanley Lowe told him that only applied to bills and advised him to look again at the standing orders. As he was doing so, Mr. Barritt said he wished to object to the proposal from Mr. Blakeney that the plan and the report of the tribunal be considered.

Mr. Blakeney said his Ministry is looking into questions raised by the Opposition that emergency vehicles are unable to access parts of the Town of St. George.

"We are very concerned, as anyone would be, about the prospect of a fire on one of those narrow roads in St. George's and around the Island," he said. "This is a result of old building codes that allowed people to build right to the edge of their property."

He added: "One option is the installation of fire hydrants or smaller vehicles. And we are looking at our options in regards to purchasing emergency vehicles that could properly address some of the challenges Bermuda faces in this matter."

A vote was taken on Mr. Blakeney's proposal and the Minister won by 17 votes to ten. Mr. Barritt found a different rule, which states that an item must appear twice on the order paper before it can be debated. He said that was not the case with the Bermuda Plan 2008.

But Mr. Lowe said: "The House has approved the motion so we cannot go back on it." The plan was later approved by MPs.