Work on Pembroke Marsh Park will not start until 2008 at the earliest, Government has said.

The Ministry of the Environment said the old Pembroke dump will continue to be an active compost site for the next three to four years until another location for composting is found.

However, the Opposition has charged that the reason it is taking so long to develop a park in the area is that North Pembroke residents are not Government?s top priority.

The Ministry of Environment said there are five phases in the project to develop the park and the first two ? Parsons Road Park and playground plus a basketball court ? have already been completed.

However, three remaining phases are still ongoing or not due to begin for years to come.

Building a nature reserve on the side of the marsh near Dutton Avenue ? running beside Bernard Park ? is ongoing but a Desert Field Development off Glebe Road was targeted to begin in 2006 or 2007, it said.

And the main and final phase, converting the old Pembroke dump into a large park area, is not due to start until 2008 or 2009.

?Thereafter, issues such as heat dissipation, drainage and subsidence of composted material all have to be addressed from an engineering standpoint before the park is finally created,? a Ministry spokesperson said.

But Opposition MP Cole Simons said if the issue of heat dissipation ? caused by the composting process ? is going to be managed in a more timely manner, Government must stop using the marsh as a compost heap to let the compost cool down naturally.

?It?s smoking all the time,? Mr. Simons said.

?The reason it took so long was that it was not a priority to turn into a park and satisfy the residents of the area.

?If it was they would have had it done and would have found an alternate site. It was just convenient because it is in town and was an old dump.?

Mr. Simons said a plan to convert the dump into a park had been around since Sir John Swan was Premier. ?The plans have been in place since the 1990s if not earlier,? he said.

Meanwhile, area residents say the compost is affecting their homes ? ashes end up on their roofs and in their water tanks, a spokesman for Perimeter Lane residents said.

?We can only hope and pray that we will be around to see a decent change,? he said.

?It?s alright to say they will do it by this time frame or that, but if they had come up with where to take this thing, they would have taken it by now.

?We have lived through it and will continue to live through it and have kept quiet. Now the biggest threat is what they want to do with housing and not do anything with the dumpsite.?

The Bermuda Housing Corporation (BHC) wants to build 38 apartments at 18 and 20 Perimeter Lane.

?It keeps growing,? the residents? spokesman said of the towering heap of mulched vegetable matter. ?I used to be able to see Parsons Road, but now it is a mountain and all I can see is the skyline.?