The Holders Hill community lessons

Holders Hill, St James was famous for the number of national and international cricketers it has produced; however, in 2024, this village’s reputation for dogged defiance against one of the island’s corporate giants is now foremost in people’s minds.

The victory, which the residents of Olive Lodge, Holders Hill achieved in forcing telecommunications company Digicel to remove a controversial cellular tower from their residential district, did not come by shrinking in the face of a powerful opponent.

Digicel, in its defence, said its aim was really to provide a better quality service to customers in the surrounding areas. As well-intentioned as the goal, the execution of the installation was the company’s undoing.

With no permission from the Planning Department to plant the tower on January 18, the company ‘started wrong’, and as the old adage suggests, would expectedly ‘end wrong’.

The organic movement within the community was an admirable development. The level of activism demonstrated the power that is held by ordinary citizens, which they can use to great effect if they are united in their position.

There were no unruly meetings, no burning of tyres and blocking of roads; there were no cantankerous outbursts. The residents of the village made their position clear, selected a spokesperson who could properly articulate their concerns, and they remained consistent in their position.

Well aware they were on solid legal and moral ground; they lashed the company for not engaging with them prior to the cell tower’s erection and the accompanying nuisance that the diesel generator created.

Their other fundamental complaint was the proximity of the tower to their homes, particularly in light of suspected and proven adverse effects associated with the type of radiation emitted from them.

Dr Jennifer Obiyah-Alleyne, a retired academic who led the charge, has become an inspiration for others in how to effectively bring about change.

Digicel’s CEO Mrs Natalie Abrahams has committed to removing the tower on or before March 20.

“I did not speak to [Mrs Abrahams] in terms of offering an apology nor did she offer one but as long as the tower is gone, we are fine. We can live without an apology,” was Dr Obiyah-Alleyne’s reaction to the villagers’ achieving their goal.

The controversy over the placement of a cellular tower in the St James community attracted obvious political commentary.

Digicel’s CEO is the wife of the Home Affairs Minister; the recently reappointed Cabinet appointee Minister of Industry, Innovation, Science and Technology Marsha Caddle revealed to the public Digicel had no planning permission; Opposition Leader Ralph Thorne jumped to the residents’ defence, while the Member of Parliament for the area Mr Kerrie Symmonds offered a stinging critique of Digicel while backing the residents.

It was chairman of Digicel Barbados The Most Honourable Ralph Bizzy Williams’ response to the matter that was interesting, to say the least, given the type of symbiotic relationship that exists between the local business class and our political class.

Obviously upset at how the entire issue unfolded, Mr Williams told one media house he was out of the island when the matter blew up.

Serving some harsh words for the MP for the area, Mr Williams was quoted as saying: “It is most unfortunate that the . . . man knew how to pick up the telephone and call me when one of his constituents was threatened by a big tree that was about to fall on their house. He knew how to call me to get this problem solved and I went and solved the problem for him. I took a crane there and a tree specialist and we moved the tree for the man.

“Now, instead of taking up the phone and saying, ‘Bizzy, we have a little problem here in the community, come and see what you can do about this tower that is affecting people’ – all he had to do was to make one call – but instead of doing that he chose to go to the media to lambaste Digicel that only put the tower there to try to improve connectivity to the residents.”

The cell phone tower controversy in Holders Hill threw up a multitude of issues which we should analyse for some time to come.