On the left of the Premier of the Cayman Islands Andre Ebanks is chairman of the National Conservation Council Ian Kirkham. On the Premier’s right is chairman of the Central Planning Authority Ian Pairaudeau. Both are intelligent, experienced men. Both say they want what is best for Cayman. Both now say, publicly at least, that the country cannot continue to develop as it has done for the past fifty years. And yet their respective statutory bodies have spent an extraordinary amount of time and public money arguing over which of them is entitled to say so.
This is not, of course, a personal contest. It is tempting to portray the matter that way because personalities are sometimes easier to read than statutes. One Ian appears to stand in front of the bulldozer; the other appears to decide whether it may start work or not. That caricature though is unfair to both men and, more importantly, misses the point. The continuing tension between the NCC and the CPA is not principally the product of obstinacy, environmental zealotry or development enthusiasm but the predictable result of two Acts of Parliament which were written for different purposes, at different times, and which have never been properly stitched together.
The CPA administers a planning system intended to decide whether land may be developed and, if so, in what manner. Its mandate is the Development and Planning Act, its Regulations and a Development Plan dating from 1997. The NCC, under section 41 of the National Conservation Act, must be consulted where the action of a public entity may have an adverse effect on a protected area or the critical habitat of a protected species. In the circumstances prescribed by that section, the Council’s approval is not merely helpful advice. It has legal consequence.
That distinction has supplied legal counsel with some excellent fodder.
The courts have made clear that the CPA cannot treat an NCC direction as just another departmental comment to be weighed and, if inconvenient, set aside. The Conservation Act was deliberately given teeth. At the same time, the Planning Authority cannot sensibly discharge its function if every garage conversion, seawall repair and 3-shop retail mall is processed as though it were an existential threat to the blue iguana or ghost orchids. Following the litigation, some 1,300 applications were reportedly referred to the Council, although Dr Kirkham estimated that only about 200 truly required referral. This is not environmental protection. It is administrative self-defence.
The July 2026 Cayman Forward report recognises much of this. It proposes a joint adverse-effect assessment tool, clearer timelines, better publication of decisions, earlier engagement, cross-membership and a taskforce with the splendidly energetic acronym START. All are sensible. People who speak to one another are less likely to challenge one another. A shared screening tool should prevent routine applications from being needlessly bounced between departments. Better records and reasons should make decisions easier to understand and harder to challenge.
But guidance is not law, and a directive is not Parliament.
The report itself says that it lays the groundwork for a shared decision framework rather than delivering the framework in final form. That is an important admission. The real dispute is statutory- when is an adverse effect sufficiently possible or serious to trigger the Council’s jurisdiction, who makes that initial judgment? What weight must be given to mitigation and who makes the final decision where planning benefit and environmental harm genuinely conflict? How is that decision appealed without one arm of Government judicially reviewing another? Those questions should not be left to a memorandum, an internal flowchart or the continued good humour of two chairmen. Chairmen change. The law remains.
From Ian Kirkham’s point of view, the law must continue to ensure that environmental harm cannot simply be traded away by a planning board after the technical evidence has been received. A protected area is not protected if its protection depends upon whether a particular development looks attractive, promises jobs or arrives accompanied by a persuasive planning statement. Critical habitat cannot be recreated by adding a landscaping condition. The Conservation Act therefore needs a clear and enforceable threshold at which environmental expertise becomes determinative, together with an express precautionary approach where the scientific evidence is uncertain but the potential damage is serious or irreversible.
From Ian Pairaudeau’s point of view, however, the CPA cannot be reduced to a mere conduit for another authority’s decisions. Planning requires environmental concerns to be balanced against many competing public and private interests. If the NCC can impose a binding veto without clear limits or a right of appeal, the CPA remains responsible for a decision it does not control. That is neither transparent nor fair.
Both Ians are therefore right, but each is right about a different part of the problem.
The solution is not to weaken conservation until it becomes consultation theatre. Nor is it to subordinate planning to an environmental approval process operating alongside it. The solution is to amend both statutes so that they form one decision-making system.
First, the Development and Planning Act and the National Conservation Act should contain the same definition of environmental adverse effect. The definition should distinguish a merely conceivable or trivial effect from a likely material effect, while expressly capturing cumulative, indirect and irreversible harm. The statutory test should identify the evidence to be considered and the degree of risk required. An internal assessment tool may then implement that test, but it should not invent it.
Second, the law should allocate the screening function expressly. Professional planning officers, using published environmental maps and agreed criteria, should be authorised to clear applications that plainly fall below the threshold. Applications that meet or may meet it should be referred automatically to the Department of Environment and, where the statutory threshold is engaged, to the NCC. The applicant and the public should be able to see why a referral was or was not made.
Third, the legislation should distinguish environmental facts from the ultimate planning judgment. The NCC and its technical advisers should determine the nature, extent and significance of the environmental effect, and identify whether it can genuinely be avoided or mitigated. The CPA should then determine the planning application within the limits created by that finding. Where harm to a protected area or critical habitat would be serious or irreversible, refusal should be the statutory default unless Cabinet, on a published recommendation and for defined reasons of overriding national importance, decides otherwise. That exception must be narrow enough not to swallow the protection.
Fourth, mitigation needs a proper statutory home. Applicants should be entitled to revise a proposal once in response to environmental findings without restarting the entire application. Conditions should be specific, measurable, enforceable and related to the development. Financial contributions should not be permitted to purchase permission for harm that cannot actually be compensated. There is a difference between mitigation and absolution.
Finally, Government needs a specialist merits appeal. Judicial review is essential where a public body acts unlawfully, but it is a ruinously blunt instrument for resolving a technical disagreement between two public authorities. A small independent Planning and Environment Tribunal, containing legal, planning and environmental expertise, could hear expedited appeals on jurisdiction, evidence, conditions and proportionality. Its reasons should be published. Cabinet should be reserved for the rare case involving an expressly identified matter of overriding national importance, not used as an all-purpose planning appeal committee.
None of this removes politics from planning. Nor should it. Decisions about how much Cayman develops, where development occurs and what must remain untouched are ultimately public choices. But those choices ought to be made in the Development Plan, after evidence and consultation, rather than improvised parcel by parcel by statutory bodies working from a development plan written for a Cayman that no longer exists.
On that, at least, Ian and Ian appear to agree. Both have described a new Development Plan as essential. They are correct. A modern Plan might usefully identify protected areas, critical habitat, natural drainage, coastal risk, infrastructure capacity and suitable areas for growth with sufficient clarity to inform actual decisions. If Government decides these matters strategically, fewer individual applications will become proxy battles over the future of the Islands.
The Cayman Forward handshake is welcome. So are shared meetings, better data and a little less litigation. But institutional peace cannot depend upon two reasonable men remaining reasonable in the same room. The task now belongs to Cabinet and Parliament: define the trigger, divide the functions, provide the appeal and update the Plan.
In short, it’s not about which Ian should win.
Andrew Gibb Chartered Architect 