Local News 10 000 houses in five years: Mottley vows accelerated HOPE project by Barbados Today 19/03/2024 written by Barbados Today Updated by Aguinaldo Belgrave 19/03/2024 2 min read A+A- Reset Some of the completed houses at Lancaster, St James which are still not occupied. Share FacebookTwitterLinkedinWhatsappEmail 4K Target of building 10 000 homes in five years under the Home Ownership Providing Energy (HOPE) project Additional 2 561 housing solutions to be created in St. Philip and St. Lucy through a National Housing Corporation-private sector joint venture separate from HOPE Barbadians can expect to see a ramping up of the construction of houses under the Home Ownership Providing Energy (HOPE) housing project in the coming months, Prime Minister Mia Mottley announced Monday in the 2024/2025 Budget. Admitting that there had been several challenges in meeting the âambitious objectivesâ of the housing project to provide 10 000 homes in five years. Mottley said several systems have been implemented to try to address some of the issues hampering the construction process, including the procurement of materials and the bottlenecks in executing mortgage transactions. âWe have had some problems with HOPE, and the structure and the systems were not sufficient, and we are now in the process of completing those systems and the employment of persons necessary so that we can roll out an industrial scale in terms of procurement, in terms of surveying, in terms of construction, in terms of every aspect of getting a house up and running, because this is not as simple as building five or ten houses when you are looking to build the kinds of numbers that we want to build,â she said. Pointing out that 1 119 houses were built and delivered to homeowners through the HOPE project, the PM stressed âWhat we did in two years, we must now be doing in one year and therefore it is not beyond our reach, but we need to be able to make it happenâ. Acknowledging that she was not happy with the current situation, she nevertheless expressed her belief that the targets could still be achieved. She pointed out that the joint venture programme to be embarked on between the Ministry of Housing, the National Housing Corporation and private sector providers would result in another 2 561 housing solutions being created in St Philip and St Lucy, separate from the HOPE project. You Might Be Interested In Crystal Beckles-Holder, 2nd runner up in regional competition GUYANA: Body of child found after gold mine collapses Barbadians asked to help with return tickets for Haitians Commenting on the governmentâs decision to engage with a Chinese company to help the island in the rebuilding process after the passage of Hurricane Elsa, she pointed out that while the original intention was for Chinese labour to do the work, this had not worked out as the personnel could not get transit visas to Barbados, leaving the island for use local labour which was more expensive. She said, however, that an assessment conducted by an independent quantity surveying team, BCQS, demonstrated that while the costs were over the original budget, they were in line with market expectations compared to the resources out of China. (JB)   Barbados Today Stay informed and engaged with our digital news platform. The leading online multimedia news resource in Barbados for news you can trust. You may also like Straker remanded on burglary and firearm charges 18/02/2025 #SpeakingOut – Preserve the Holetown Festival 18/02/2025 Murder accused Trevere Gittens remanded 18/02/2025