The government on Friday defended its decision to give up its historic Holetown, St James, civic centre to allow for a private tourism-based operator to take control of the beachfront West Coast property.
The move makes it the third major state-owned coastal property which the administration plans to divest in favour of private tourism development. The others are at Oistins in Christ Church and St Ann’s Fort on the South Coast.
Dr William Duguid, senior minister in the Prime Minister’s Office, introduced a resolution under the Land Acquisition Act to acquire almost 75 000 square metres of land at Trents, St James, to build a new civic centre to house the police, courts, Barbados Revenue Authority, post office, library and other services currently operating from the Holetown complex.
Dr Duguid said the site, which is identified as the landing spot of the first European settlers to the island, was “dense and compact” and was “bounded by developments to the north, developments to the south, the highway and the sea on the west”, leaving no room for expansion of the civic centre “as it is currently configured”.
The Christ Church West MP explained that the area to which the centre will be relocated opposite the Frederick Smith Secondary School allowed for a “new place that could take a new and improved civic centre so that a better, new and improved police station could go [along] with a better, new and improved court facility”.
While he did not offer details on what would be coming to the spot to be vacated, the minister said a new centre supporting tourism, entertainment and retail will be created at the historic Holetown site.
The senior minister offered assurances that attention would be given to improving drainage in the flood-prone Holetown area.
He declared: “It will give us growth, it will give us jobs, it will give us economic activity, it will give opportunities for our people not only to be trained in culinary arts and in hospitality, but also to be able to use their talents and use their God-given abilities to be able to export and move to other areas as necessary. So, I don’t imagine that there could be any debate whatsoever about this.”
Dr Duguid explained that Trents was previously zoned as a Zone 1 protected watershed, thus preventing development on the land, but was now classified as Zone B, after a rezoning exercise by the government.
The minister said: “It is not agricultural land; it was always in the community plan to be developed – to move a police station from what is a danger zone into a protected zone and then redevelop that area to redound to the benefit of the country, both in economic activity, in jobs, and to help us to be able to build up and grow this economy. This is a win-win. I can’t imagine I could see any objection or any debate on this whatsoever.”
(IMC1)
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