ARTHUR Pitcher has taken a fair bit of flak since he was elected to the House of Assembly in November, 1998.

And even since he stood down as Progressive Labour Party MP for St. George's South before last year's General Election, his name has kept on popping up in the headlines ? usually amid controversy.

The reason the 52-year-old building contractor keeps on making the news is his involvement in a Bermuda Housing Corporation building project to make 20 new homes on the former baselands in St. David's.

Mr. Pitcher is one of four directors of Bermuda Composite Construction Ltd (BCC), the company that won the $4 million Southside contract.

Nearly four years ago, St. David's residents accused BCC of having removed asbestos without masks for its workers and then having taken away the cancer-causing substance in open-topped trucks.

This week the fallout from that incident was still making the news. A report commissioned by the Ministry of Health and finally released last month concluded that Mr. Pitcher's company had broken safety rules.

But Chief Medical Officer Dr. John Cann, who wrote the report, said this week that there were no plans to prosecute anybody as a result.

It was the second case on the same project of BCC being shown to have broken the rules but escaping punishment.

IN 2000, BCC had started work sinking footings on Texas Road before the BHC had obtained planning permission. Mr. Pitcher admitted he had "jumped the gun".

The Royal Gazette reported that serious offences of building without a permit were punishable by fines up to $25,000 ? but the Planning Department did not consider the Southside breach serious enough to warrant punishment.

The Opposition accused the PLP Government of turning a blind eye when rules were broken by a company partly owned by one of its own MPs.

Mr. Pitcher found himself in more hot water in August 2001, when he fired seven workers at Southside following an altercation between himself and one of his men, Ryan Fox.

The case went to Magistrates' Court and Mr. Pitcher was cleared of the assault charge in November, 2002.

Even when some of the units were ready and families were starting to move in, controversy continued to plague the builder.

In the House of Assembly in July 2002, Mr. Pitcher had to stave off allegations of nepotism in the awarding of homes, as his stepdaughter was one of the first tenants. Mr. Pitcher said he had had no say in who got the homes.

Mr. Pitcher hit the headlines again in July 2003, when Transport Minister Dr. Ewart Brown sued ACL Construction for allegedly overcharging him and not completing work on his waterfront home. ACL had hired Mr. Pitcher to carry out the work.

Mr. Pitcher may not have set the House of Assembly alight with his rhetoric, but his achievement in winning a St. George's South seat in what had formerly been a United Bermuda Party stronghold was significant.

A St. David's Islander born and raised, he first stood for Parliament in October 1993, when he failed to win the seat by a margin of 41 votes, but made substantial inroads for the PLP.

Five years later he topped the poll with 714 votes, and went to Parliament along with his running mate the Rev. Wilbur Lowe, as the PLP swept to power.

In his moment of triumph, Mr. Pitcher said: "We have been neglected in the past, but be assured that your homeboy will take care of home."