Poor building maintenance costing Barbados

By Marlon Madden

Concerned that buildings across the island are not being properly maintained, an architectural conservator has warned that Barbados stands to lose a major part of its heritage that could otherwise be used to rake in significant income.
Jamila Sokunbi, founder of the recently established organisation RE Building Conservation, told Barbados TODAY she was especially concerned about the continuous reports of “sick buildings”.
She said the Government was not the only culprit, pointing out that the private sector was also guilty of ignoring critical building maintenance.
“We have a lot of sick buildings, as they say, and I think it comes down to people not being educated enough about how to deal with older buildings,” Sokunbi said.
“I think the problem is quite widespread because we do not have a proper maintenance programme for our buildings, and if you don’t maintain something it is going to constantly get worse. We need to develop a maintenance programme and then educate people a bit more about how these materials actually work.”
Sokunbi said she was also concerned about school plants, several of which are often closed at the start of each school term due to environmental problems.
“I think a lot of our school buildings need some care . . . . I think they need to maintain them. When you look at some of the school buildings, they need some TLC. I think the older ones especially need some care,” she said.
“I think it comes down to educating persons about how buildings work. You can’t just build a building and leave it. You need to understand how it works.”
The architectural conservator argued that maintaining older buildings could help to preserve a part of the island’s heritage and be used as a foreign exchange earner in the tourism heritage niche market.
“The [construction of] the older buildings took a lot of things into consideration. They took our climate into consideration, our way of life – all of these things went into how the buildings were built and these are things we borrow and use for future buildings. We have a lot of buildings that are literally just square boxes with windows that do not open, and air conditioners,” she said.
marlonmadden@barbadostoday.bb