Senior Minister Kerrie Symmonds has emphasised the need to rethink the placement of critical infrastructure in order to enhance the spatial balance in Barbados’ tourism industry.
While discussing the Resolution Of Section 5 Land Acquisition Act, Cap 228, Trents, St James in the House of Assembly last Friday, Symmonds was on board with the idea of relocating key facilities in the Holetown Civic Centre after highlighting the challenges posed by the current location.
“Far too many times the first responders, the people we call when we are in a crisis and need, are those who are located in the middle of the deepest risk,” he said. “First responders are facing challenges in a flood plain in the area of the hospital, right across the road there in this part of St Michael. In Oistins, the police station is on the beach. If you go around Barbados, there are many instances where we have had that type of installation placed, questionably so in my view, on a beachfront.”
The Minister of Foreign Affairs argued that relocating fundamental services to safer, inland locations would address long-standing issues.
“The question therefore now becomes, is it not wiser and better and more prudent for us to relocate fundamental services to a place which is more inland and therefore more safe and enables them better to do the work that they have to do? I believe that we are now ticking that box and correcting a mistake that has been many, many years in the making.”
The proposed Government plans are meant to relocate critical public services to a new site outside of the flood-prone zone with the idea of facilitating
economic growth through the development of the new civic centre, police station, court facility and other public services.
Turning to tourism, Symmonds underscored the importance of spatial balance to spread economic benefits across the island and reduce environmental strain whilst firing a shot back at Opposition Leader Ralph Thorne, who questioned the identity of the beneficiary of this relocation when it transpired.
“The truth of the matter is that when the honourable member speaks about tourism, he speaks almost with a bankruptcy to the developments which are confronting this country and to which we must respond. Speightstown is not something that we dream about or that we wish about. Speightstown is a lived reality,” he said.
The Senior Minister added: “And in Speightstown today, there is a jetty which, for the first time in the history of Barbados – let me repeat that again for the benefit of the Leader of the Opposition – for the first time in the history of Barbados, Speightstown is now seeing cruise ship landings at that jetty and this opens up a whole new avenue of commercial opportunity, unprecedented.” (JC)
