Former PM not supporting shifting Bay Street offices; bemoans lack of concern for societal impact

By Jenique Belgrave

Former Prime Minister Freundel Stuart is not in favor of any plan to relocate Government Headquarters from Bay Street to make room for any future tourism development.

He made this clear while speaking on the current administration’s decision to move the Geriatric Hospital on Beckles Road to the Botanical Gardens in Waterford, St Michael.

“I passed where we are going to have the new Geriatric Hospital so that we can release the land in Beckles Road to private investment. When I was Prime Minister, some people came to Barbados telling me that where Government Headquarters is would be good for tourism development and that the Prime Minister’s office should be moved up to Ilaro Court.

“I said ‘I don’t have any problem with that suggestion, just come back and tell me when the White House is going to be moved in the United States; come back and tell me when Number 10 Downing Street is going to be moved and when 28 Sussex Drive In Canada will be moved and where’. I haven’t heard from any of them since,” he stated.

Saying the island once had the belief that the achievements of its people are important and in need of protection, the former leader of the Democratic Labour Party (DLP) lamented that now “all life in Barbados today is about transactions” with no concern being given to the societal impact. 

“They do not discuss the social implications of anything going on in Barbados. It is just the bottomline, what the transaction will yield and what it will yield for certain people’s pockets,” he charged.

Speaking at the DLP’s City branch meeting at Baxter’s Road over the weekend, Stuart said the Barbados Labour Party (BLP) is failing both residential and commercial Bridgetown. He said that since the current administration came into power there has been no transformation of The City either for those who live there or who work there.

The former prime minister pointed out that while Bridgetown was a bustling hub of commercial activity for 69 years, this has declined significantly over the past decade and that the current government has done little to address it.

Commenting on the residential areas in the capital however, he acknowledged that these have not been given any attention for decades.

“Whenever there is upheaval, residential Bridgetown is not regarded as being deserving of economic attention,” he said, while pointing out that several of its communities including Greenfield, New Orleans, Nelson Street and Chapman Lane are in serious need of development.

“The people in Nelson Street do not want any open space. They want proper housing, proper roads, access to the services and the amenities that people in other areas in Barbados have. People in Greenfield want that, in Chapman Lane and the Orleans want that. Residential Bridgetown has been ignored for the last 77 years,” he said, while pointing out that Barbados could not be developed without its main town.

Stuart told the meeting that now is the time to develop forward-thinking policies to take the nation further.

“We also have to formulate policies to carry Barbados into the future. I do not think that we can credibly formulate any policy to carry Barbados into the future, unless we have policies for residential Bridgetown because for too many years they have been the Cinderellas in City politics, stereotyped as the criminal element…and we cannot credibly come back to the people of Barbados unless we have a policy to rehabilitate residential Bridgetown.”  

jeniquebelgrave@barbadostoday.bb