I have noted a letter from Prof Kenny in your paper where he claimed that it is an "undeniable fact" that the application for a CEC for the Performing Arts Academy did not contain any reference to a hotel. However, for consistency, he should apply the same zeal to examining the environmental record and adherence to the building laws in some of the other areas of national development.
If he did so, he might discover some evidence of hypocrisy or double standards on the part of others, and he might even discover blatant disregard for our planning laws by some of the people who are most vocal about this issue. I have also observed that Kenny took issue with my use of the phrase "the true facts." However, if he did some research on the etymology of this phrase (as opposed to entomology, which he is certainly familiar with), he would discover that, historically, the word "fact" has often been used to indicate an allegation of something that may or may not be a "true fact."
He would also discover that this terminology, ie "the true facts," although contested by some critics, has a long history in standard English. Accordingly, it is an undeniable and "true fact" that when the academy was conceptualised and agreed to by the Government in 2006, the scope of works for the project included hotel accommodation. This fact was repeated in PSIP documents and in the Vision 2020 Implementation�Plan, among other public documents. Long before the idea of a hotel became an issue in 2008, therefore, it was an established and true fact, that was known to all members of the Cabinet, that a hotel was included in the academy, and that it was intended to serve the needs of visiting lecturers and artistes. Further, the inclusion of hotel accommodation in an academy of this nature is standard practice in other countries.�
Finally, all of this fuss about a 50 or 60-room hotel in�the academy is in my view an extremely trivial storm in a teacup, because when all of the relevant land use factors are considered in the context of the Princes Building site, together with the historical land utilisation patterns around the Queen's Park Savannah and in the St Clair Estate, including the true fact that the Queen's Park Hotel was for many years located just a few metres away from the site, only a very unreasonable person would object to medium-scale hotel accommodation at that location.�
Colm Imbert
Minister of Works and Transport