It is very expensive to keep people in their homes and villages in the Scotland District, said Minister of Transport, Works and Water Resources Santia Bradshaw on Tuesday.
Even so, she said, relocation of residents affected by land slippage will be prioritised, as attention is placed on rehabilitating those areas that can be developed.
One such area in White Hill, St Andrew which the minister said is undergoing a “transformation”, allowing residents to be able to continue to access the place they have called home for many years. Another such area, she said, is King’s Street.
Stating that keeping people in their communities will come at a cost, requiring the best in engineering expertise, Bradshaw told the House of Assembly where debate resumed on a resolution to approve the Barbados Physical Development Plan as amended in 2023: “It is a costly exercise to be able to allow people to remain in place in the Scotland District. But we as a party and as a government have remained committed to that.
“Moving out people is not a first option, but keeping people safe is the priority for which all of us have been working in relation to these areas…. There is still a lot of gabion work and stabilisation that have to be done in that area,” added Bradshaw.
She charged that White Hill residents had been “cast away” and “neglected” with no infrastructural development in the area. Now, she added, work was nearing the end of phase one of a three-phase project in the rural community.
“We have had some slippage along the way. We have had damage to a house or two because of fallen trees and additional slippage, but we have started to see light at the end of the tunnel in terms of the redevelopment of that area,” Bradshaw said during the morning session.
She pointed out, however, that relocation will be more of an issue of safety and making sure that people are not compromised by land slippage.
Bradshaw also spoke of the magnitude of the financial implications of the Physical Development Plan (PDP) and how it could get the country where it wants to be in 20-30 years.
“It will require significant investment and unlocking financing to be able to build out the roads and improve the sanitation,” she said, adding that without the financial backing, the PDP document would not have life “breathed into it”. “If we don’t have the financing and we are not able to incur debt in order to be able to build out the capital projects, we will not be able to accomplish what is articulated in this particular development plan.”
She reminded the Chamber of the Government’s securing of the $230 million project to rehabilitate the Scotland District which required attention for a long time. She suggested that people in those areas have felt like “the forgotten communities” of Barbados.
“The lack of infrastructure and the upgrades that have not been taking place have made them feel as though they had been forgotten,” the minister said.
The minister noted that the work in the East Coast areas has had to be prioritised, with special attention paid to those communities that could be cut off from other areas if infrastructural issues are not addressed.
“We have had to build bypass roads because we have to get connectivity from one district to the other,” she said. She also told the debate that during that time, plans had to be designed and bridges prefabricated and brought into the country while civil works were completed to make way for the bridges to be installed.
“Sometimes, in our haste to see development, we do not always appreciate what has to take place behind the scenes in order for us to get to the destination,” Bradshaw added.
(SP)
