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The Bermuda Environmental and Sustainability Taskforce
Charity Reg. No. 858
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Cyrus Trust Appeal denied, Zanzara Trust withdrawal of application - BEST response
These decision, while welcome in that they bring a degree of closure to two long-festering matters, do not adequately address the fundamental issue that because both applications were inadequate or inaccurate, or both, they SHOULD NOT have been attended by the DAB and therefore should never have reached the Environment Minister's desk. For whatever reason, the DAB rendered decisions in both cases based on flawed applications. Those decisions were then the subjects of appeals. It is our opinion, however, that as much as a year ago, both applications should have been turned back to the applicants and not left to occupy undeserved place and time in the DOP files and on the Minister's calendar.
Had this taken place, it could have saved the time and energy of individuals and organisations like BEST who have had to mount a protracted campaign merely to get a result that should have been a "no-brainer."Had this taken place, it would have saved former Environment Minister Roban from his rushed approval of the appeals on his last day in that office, yielding a profoundly different result to his public service career.
As it now stands, the current Minister's decision on The Cyrus Trust appeal and the withdrawal of the Zanzara appeal infer that these were legitimate appeals that were entertained and/or decided on their merits. In the interest of a healthy and credible application process in the future, we would encourage the Department of Planning and the Development Applicant Applications Board to strictly uphold their standards for accepting applications, knowing that the failure to do so can, as in this case, cause time, energy and effort to be wasted and credibility to be lost.
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