The Southlands developers have attempted to persuade the public that their proposal is of “national importance”.

Unfortunately, the Southlands developers passed over some very important statistics that bring the Southlands proposal into clearer perspective.

In 1986 Bermuda had almost 600,000 visitors (in 1987 the figure topped 600,000).

Anyone who lived here at the time will remember how overwhelmed our infrastructure was for those successive summers. We experienced a collective strain and exhaustion. In the shops, store clerks lost patience and were snippy with customers. There weren’t enough taxis for those who wanted them and taxi drivers also had their patience worn thin, both from the sheer volume of demand and from the heightened congestion on our roads. Even pedestrians were exasperated by the difficulty just walking in Hamilton on sidewalks clogged with visitors.

Thus, using 1986 bedcount as a benchmark ignores the very real threat to our wellbeing and indeed our ability to provide service to our tourists if we are aiming for that level of saturation of our infrastructure.

A further statistic that has apparently been ignored is that Bermuda is more densely packed now than it was in 1986. There are more residents. There is more traffic on our roads. And there are more international companies with a greater number of guest-worker staffing.

In 1986, Bermuda’s population was 57,619. By 2005, the latest year for which we have figures, Bermuda’s population was above 68,000. That’s over 10,000 more residents who will be competing for sidewalk space, storeclerk attention, public and private transportation and other basic services.

In 1986, the total number of vehicles on our roads was 44,013. By 2005 the vehicle count had risen to just under 69,000. That means there’s at least 25,000 more vehicles on the roads now than in 1986. Looking at the growth just in the number of cars, in 1986 there were 17,152 cars on our roads. By 2005 the number was 29,230 and, given the 90 cars we were adding per month in 2006, that number will now be above 30,000. That’s over 12,000 more cars than in 1986. Also, there are bigger vehicles on our roads, most of which are moving much faster than they were in 1986. Thus the conflict between tourist bike-renters, many of whom are first-timers, and local road users will be greater, and the experience for tourists a less comfortable one.

If Bermuda’s economy was failing, or stalled, or even facing some threat of same, hotel development in general might approach being of “national importance”. The economy is actually in an overheated state and the Southlands hotel proposal with its requirements for additional foreign staff for construction and operation has little national importance beyond the strain it will impose on Bermuda’s infrastructure, the loss of precious open space, and the pressure being put on the government to overturn good sense Planning standards and processes.