The government’s plan to relocate key first responder agencies in St James has prompted a call to shift emergency services from flood-prone and hard-to-access areas to more suitable locations across the island.
Kerrie Symmonds, the MP for St James Central, suggested the time has come to re-evaluate the locations of several first responder entities across the island that are situated in flood-prone or hard-to-access areas during emergencies. He was speaking during the debate on a resolution to compulsorily acquire land at Trents, St James for the new Holetown Civic Centre.
Symmonds highlighted that plans to relocate the Civic Centre, which will house the Holetown Police Station, should be viewed as a positive step, especially considering the challenges officers face during heavy flooding in Holetown.
“Far too many times around Barbados, the first responders – the people we call on first in a time of crisis – are located in the middle of the deepest risk,” he said. “If you inundate the police station and the officers have no place to operate from, they cannot effectively work as first responders.”
He stressed that it has been unfortunate that historically the country has placed vital services in vulnerable areas, such as beachfronts or floodplains.
“This is the error that began way back when we became independent,” he said. “You have first responders who had to face challenges in Holetown on the beach; first responders facing challenges in a flood plain in the area of the [Queen Elizabeth Hospital]; in Oistins, the police station is on the beach, and 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 question now becomes, is it not wiser and better and prudent, for us to relocate fundamental services to a place that is more inland, and therefore more safe, and enables them to do the work they have to do.”
Symmonds also addressed concerns about beach access, underscoring the government’s commitment to maintaining and improving public accessibility.
He said: “Anybody who has heard me on this matter, or my colleague the honourable member for St James North, would have heard us speak to the question of the need for us to constantly review and improve beach access. In many cases they need to be widened, [and] in many cases they are in need of repair . . . there is no difficulty or issue whatsoever with the question of limited beach access.”
He stressed that part of the relocation plans includes enhancing beach access, making it suitable for both pedestrians and large vehicles in Trents.
“Part of the plans about which I have been assured is that there will be an enhancement of the beach access so that it would not only be by foot, but by large vehicles, so as to ensure that we can get the necessary heavy duty equipment down onto the beach so as to assist in hauling up boats when there is a need to do that, and to protect the beach when there is a need to do that,” he said. (SB)
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