Senator Cohen under fire

Tuesday 26th April 2011, 3:00PM BST.

The controversial development at Portelet

THREATS and anti-Semitic abuse have been sent to Environment Minister Freddie Cohen over the Portelet development.

The minister says that he has received personally abusive messages, letters and emails, some of which were ‘viciously threatening and disgustingly anti-Semitic’.

There has been a wave of criticism of the minister since the JEP highlighted the appearance of the Dandara development on the site of the old holiday village at Portelet.

In a letter to the JEP today, Senator Cohen defends his decision to approve the scheme, designed by Sir Richard MacCormac, and says that by the time he took the Planning job there was already a Planning consent for development at Portelet, and that there was no way he could stop the scheme going ahead.