It is just over a year since developers signed a deal with the Jumeirah Group to build a 311-suite resort on the Southlands estate on the South Shore.

The first stage of Jumeirah Southlands was expected to be completed by the summer of 2008, with the 37-acre resort up and running by 2010.

The 497-bed facility was to offer tourist accommodation in 176 suites but 135 suites were to be sold as fractional vacation units.

The cliffside resort was to feature five restaurants and bars, a nightclub, spa, swimming pools, equestrian facility and conference centre.

Despite hundreds of letters of objection, Government granted a Special Development Order for the project last July, saying the hotel was needed to cater for the Island's booming tourist numbers.

Jumeirah Southlands was touted as the first 'luxury' resort to be constructed on the Island for 35 years, and was to create 590 full-time positions.

Plans for the development however, drew protests from environmental campaigners, who claimed the cliffside resort would destroy one of the Island's last remaining areas of open space and wipe out wildlife habitats.

Members of the public also objected to traffic congestion and the planned diversion of South Road through a tunnel. Meanwhile, Environment Ministry civil servants questioned the safety of beachfront suites in the event of a hurricane, and said the resort "impinges on several protected zones", such as woodland reserve and coastline.

The Department of Conservation Services objected to the plans, going so far as to call the project "irresponsible".

In a letter to Planning on February 12, 2007, it said: "This proposal presents significant direct threats to local wildlife, and if permitted, will set precedents that will challenge future conservation efforts across our Island."

Commenting on the potential for erosion of limestone cliffs in a hurricane, the Department said: "Unless the applicants can provide credible scientific modelling to contradict the prediction of that report (Bermuda Coastal Erosion Vulnerability Assessment, Ministry of the Environment, November 2004), we firmly believe that it would be irresponsible to permit this construction."

On January 24, 2007, the Department also called on Government to turn the Southlands estate into a national park.

In a letter to Planning, it said: "The Department respectfully submits that the Southlands estate would be much more valuable to Bermuda as a National Park, which could act as a destination for both the Bermudian public and visitors from all the other tourist properties on the Island, rather than as an exclusive resort accessible mainly to the visitors which are staying there."