IT WAS THE best of times; it was the worst of times.
Today Nation News interviewed residents living alongside Bushy Park, St Philip as to their thoughts concerning United Kingdom-based Top Gear Festival Barbados taking place there.
While most of them said it was good for tourism and the country by extension, and it brought much needed infrastructural improvements to the area, there were still a few issues.
Welton Alleyne helps run Raccoon’s Sports Bar with his mother Sylvia Alleyne. He called the developments brought by the festival “fantastic” but did not like how his mother’s business had been treated.
“This is really the only business in Bushy Park and as such should have been treated differently. Yes, there are a lot of people out there but they are out there and what about my regular customers? They have challenges coming here because of the restrictions concerning the event – something I bet wouldn’t happen if I was a big conglomerate,” he said.
Alleyne said his mother was a pioneer in entrepreneurship and if Government was truly serious about this area, she should have been consulted as a resident and business owner.
As for the festival itself, he said it was “beautiful” as the roads in the area would not have been fixed otherwise. He said he was glad to see the powers that be finally realize what the people in the area had known all along – that Bushy Park and its environs were a gem.
The area had been struggling with public transport and water issues for a while but neither issue was present yesterday as the water was flowing fine and Transport Board buses could be seen passing through on a regular basis. (CA)