Plans for new commercial sports facilities should consider the environment from the start, Front Harsien ODZ insisted today.

It said it would not enter the merits or otherwise of the commercialization of sports facilities, but it was 'stunned' at the complete lack of reference to environmental impact in a recently-issued White Paper.

"The Front maintains that any proposal to further lease and develop public lands should consider the environmental implications from the outset," it said, adding that the white paper should have included a section entitled  'Costs to the Environment. 

Such a section should have included the clear condition that these new commercial sport facilities were not to be considered as being of ‘national importance’ and should therefore be subject to all national and local planning and development legislation.

"In particular, this section should reiterate SPED and specify that applications will only be accepted for projects within the development zone."

Further provisions would specify that such applications are subject to the usual impact assessments, water management laws, and other regulations, the front added.