PROMINENT BUSINESSMAN Ralph “Bizzy” Williams says neither he nor his brother Sir Charles should be blamed for the spiralling price of land.
If anything, he adds, it is the Government’s fault.
“It’s the [Government’s] land use policy. There is lots of land in Barbados that could be released for small people to buy, and own a piece of the rock,” Williams told the SUNDAY?SUN in an exclusive interview.
“There are over 8 000 acres of land zoned for agriculture in Barbados that don’t have a thing growing on it but bush and grass.”
Williams said that contrary to public perception, “I don’t own a big lotta land”, though admitting he had well over an acre in his own personal land bank.
He also claimed there were a number of “land sharks” who received permission “to cut up land and then sell it for a fortune”.
“When I hear land in Barbados selling for $28 and $29 a square foot, I wonder if somebody gone mad. These are house spots for poor or middle-income people [where] the husband and wife are both working, but they can’t afford to have a little home on a piece of land of their own.
“It is crazy! And you got so much land all over Barbados doing nothing. It’s not right!” Williams said.
He has therefore called on Government to review its land use policy, saying while many quarrel about golf courses, “a golf course would employ ten times as many people per acre as sugar”.
The chairman of Williams Industries also knocked the operations of two leading state agencies – the Barbados Water Authority (BWA) and the Town Planning Department.
He said a major housing development at Foursquare Estates Ltd was being held up because it simply could not get water and the BWA was not doing anything about it.
The developer also accused planning authorities of dragging their feet on another project to cut off two acres of agricultural land next to Coles Engineering in Lowlands, Christ Church.