PM gives ministers ‘a few weeks’ to end Savvy negotiations

By Marlon Madden

Food truck vendors at Savvy on the Bay will not be moved.

Prime Minister Mia Mottley said on Friday that regardless of the outcome of negotiations between the Government and the owner of Savvy on the Bay, the food truck vendors at the Carlisle Bay, St Michael location will be allowed to stay.

She gave the assurance as she expressed disappointment that an agreement taken not to negotiate the matter in the public had not been honoured, and disclosed that she has set a deadline for Attorney General Dale Marshall and Senior Minister in the Office of the Prime Minister with responsibility for infrastructural projects Dr William Duguid to wrap up negotiations with representatives from Savoy Development (Barbados) Inc, operators of Savvy on the Bay.

“I want to be very clear – regardless of the outcome of the discussion with the developer, those vendors will stay where they are,” she said as she broke her silence on the controversy at a press conference at Ilaro Court.

“I say so because the information coming to Government from the developer would suggest that they only have a lease until March or May next year. And I want to give you the assurance that the difficulty as to where you are on the beach on the beach is not the developer’s land, and, therefore, whether it is the developer who eventually leases the land or it remains with Government as it is currently, you will have the opportunity to stay there.

“I thank the developer for giving us the idea even though there was no application with Town Planning and no ownership of land on which he has put you. But you will stay there, thanks be to God. I will say no more on that at this stage,” she added.

Concerns had been raised in the media that the Government’s acquisition of the land would displace the small businesses currently operating at Savvy on the Bay.

Mottley said she had not expected the issue to be agued in public, but if the negotiations are not resolved by the deadline she has given, the facts will be made public.

“The Government has been negotiating for quite a few weeks . . . through the Attorney General and Senior Minister of Infrastructure Dr William Duguid. What disturbed me is that the first thing we agreed, at everyone’s request, was that we didn’t go into the media to negotiate. But I don’t need to tell you what is happening and that persons related to the developer have continued to talk. And you may ask, ‘Why hasn’t the Government defended itself?’ Because we live by certain principles.

“But what I will say to you now is that I have said to the two gentlemen, ‘you have a timeline on these negotiations, and if these negotiations don’t finish within the next few weeks, there must be a ministerial statement to the Parliament and all of the facts laid bare, including how this matter started under the last government; why there was a need to go to court under the last government; how, therefore, the sale was proceeded with as a result of an act of specific performance; and why we would not have been able to act before when we said from the very beginning, those two lots in the middle were always car parks’,” the Prime Minister explained.

She insisted that “the public of Barbados must retain that open space to the beach and that there must be the opportunity for Bajans to go and park their car and get a sea bath when they want, as they have always been able to do”.

Early last month, the Government said it was ready to press ahead with plans to “reclaim” a section of the disputed land, part of which now houses several food trucks and a bar, for the purpose of a car park.

It was reported that Allan Kinch, who bought the adjacent Old Eye Ward in 2015, offered to sell back the property to the Government in 2019 but received a response.

Officials say Kinch did not have the required approval from the Planning and Development Department to establish the Savvy on the Bay business.

An Enforcement Notice and Stop Order issued by the department had also instructed Kinch to immediately discontinue the rehabilitation work on the Old Eye Ward and “restore the land to its condition before the development took place”.

marlonmadden@barbadostoday.bb