Historic upgrade ends years of hardship for Belle, Bellevue, Bayley Alley folk

Residents in three long-neglected communities in St Michael and St George are to receive piped water in their homes for the first time, as part of a national effort to modernise the ageing supply network and correct decades of infrastructural neglect, Prime Minister Mia Mottley said Thursday.

Addressing the launch of the Climate Resilient South Coast Water Reclamation Project at Harmony Hall, Christ Church, Mottley said the extension of potable water to Belle and Bellevue in St Michael and Bayley Alley in St George represented a fundamental change for residents who had long been told they could not properly develop their homes or secure financing because of the absence of a reliable water supply.  

“The residents of Belle, Bellevue and Bayley Alley will also now be able to change their relationship with this country and to participate in a meaningful way in this democracy by ensuring that they are in a position …to have access to running water in their homes like the rest of Barbados,” she said.  “Having been told that they cannot build, they cannot borrow on their house, they cannot focus on any type of stable living environment because of the absence of access to water in spite or maybe because of living next to the Belle and next to Golden Ridge and Sweet Vale.They are now in a position, for the first time to see the light at the end of the tunnel.”

The prime minister located the breakthrough within a wider national effort to modernise a water system she described as structurally unfit for purpose, noting that Barbados remained “at the mercy of two things. An aged water infrastructure that was put down first and foremost primarily in the 19th century … and for which … the pipes which you saw are now not in a position to deliver the water safely to the customers across this country.”  

The BWA had completed more than two kilometres of the 3.7 kilometres of mains replacement required to serve Belle Tenantry, Bellevue Gap and Bayley Alley, said Mottley, stressing: “This is no longer a promise, this is a project in action about to deliver.”  

She announced that the next phase, scheduled to begin in March, would involve the installation of sewer infrastructure in Belle and Bellevue, alongside a different technological solution for Bayley Alley, reflecting the unique layout of that community.  

Within another year, she said, the hardship experienced by residents would no longer define their daily reality.

“Within another 12 months I expect that this will simply be a conversation for our history books as opposed to the reality and condition of the people living in these areas,” she said.  

She acknowledged that the Barbados Water Authority faced operational challenges but defended its recent performance, telling the audience that while the agency was “not perfect”, it had done “damn good work to be able to make changes to the people of this country”.  

The launch ceremony was attended by senior government officials, union representatives, BWA employees, community stakeholders and dignitaries.  

Senior Minister of Infrastructure and Planning and MP for Christ Church West, Dr William Duguid, described the upgraded South Coast sewage treatment plant as a turning point after years of disruption caused by the 2018 sewage crisis, which heavily affected Christ Church South and West.  

Dr Duguid said the project was the product of years of coordination and more than 270 stakeholder meetings involving international partners such as the European Investment Bank, the Green Climate Fund and the Inter-American Development Bank. He credited Mottley’s international advocacy with helping to secure the financing needed to move the project forward and said the upgraded facility would allow wastewater to be treated to tertiary level, including reverse osmosis polishing, for reuse in agriculture and aquifer recharge.