Bermuda’s environmental watchdog group has called on Government to ensure that “Bermuda’s largest remaining open spaces” are not sold off, now that Tucker’s Point has gone into receivership.On hearing the news, BEST chairman Stuart Hayward said he was “saddened” but not surprised.He raised a number of questions now that the resort has been placed into receivership which are now the subject of legal advice being sought by the Ministry of the Environment and Planning.With debts of more than $150 million the resort was placed in receivership. Ernst & Young, the receiver, will undertake financial restructuring as operations continue at the resort.Some 300 employees were assured that it will not be closing and that their jobs are safe. Bermuda Industrial Union representatives were scheduled to meet with staff yesterday.BIU president Chris Furbert declined to comment.Reacting to the news, Mr Hayward said: “Despite receiving an SDO allowing them to carve up precious open space into dozens of building lots, TPC has gone into receivership anyway.”Moving forward he said: “The Government must now move to ensure that under receivership, TPC is not allowed to just sell off its assets and in the process squander acres of Bermuda’s largest remaining open spaces.“We must avoid allowing TPC to deprive our Island of the amenity that Tucker’s Point, and all Bermuda’s tourist facilities, needs for its successful operation and recovery,” he said.“We must avoid depriving all Bermudians of the environmental resources at Tucker’s Point previously protected by conservation zonings.”He noted the resort’s financial difficulties were evident as far back as 2010.At that time, he recalled that BEST urged then Minister Walter Roban “to examine carefully TPC’s financial liabilities and require them to show how the SDO they were being given would change their situation”.“We declared then at the time that allowing TPC to sell off protected acreage for housing would a) not solve their financial management problems andb) only delay the restructuring necessary to get them out of the financial hole they had dug for themselves.“We derive little satisfaction in saying ‘we told you so’, but there it is,” said Mr Hayward.“We argued at the time that granting TPC permission to act as a real estate agent (TPC has rebranded as Tucker’s Point Real Estate) without conducting an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) as required for such a massive development scheme, and without fully exploring and exposing TPC’s financial liabilities, was in effect a dereliction of the Government’s duty and responsibility — those chickens have now come home to roost.”In light of the latest developments he asked: “Did Tucker’s Point Real Estate take over the hotel premises, fractional units and Ship’s Hill town houses?“Does the SDO given to TPC in 2011 now become inoperative, given that its prime purpose (to stave off receivership) is no longer valid?“And what about TPC’s current applications in or approved at Planning? Will they be put on hold?”The questions were forwarded to the Department of Communications and Information.An Environment Ministry spokesperson said: “Legal advice is being sought on the implications of the receivership on the Department of Planning and the Ministry of Environment and Planning.”Tucker’s Point is the third resort to be placed in receivership in three years joining Newstead Belmont Hills and Pink Beach Club which was recently sold.Owned by Bermuda Properties Ltd (BPL), the 88-room hotel, managed by Rosewood, opened in 2009 after a massive redevelopment of the Tucker’s Town property.It lost more than $1 million each month from the start of 2009 through the end of August 2010.In 2011, the company fought a heated public battle for a special development order (SDO) to expand and build dozens more luxury multi-million-dollar homes on the property that it said would be sold to help repay its loan with HSBC Bermuda. That position is now under review.