New homes

Fifteen more squatters in Rock Hall, St Philip will be moving into their new homes by November while work continues on completing houses for the scores of others that still remain.

Minister of Housing, Lands and Maintenance Dwight Sutherland made this disclosure to Barbados TODAY on Monday while giving an update on the relocation project.

He said his ministry was making headway but the Hurricane Elsa relief effort continued to put a strain on the project.

“Thus far, we have moved seven people to Parish Land extension in St Philip where some 22 houses were constructed to relocate residents from Rock Hall. The other 15 people will be relocated by November 2022,” he said.

“These houses are presently being used to house persons who were affected by Hurricane Elsa, hence the delay in relocating the additional 15 people at the Parish Land extension.”

More than 250 structures are to be bulldozed in Rock Hall and people living there will be accommodated at other sites including Concordia North and Clifden in the same parish and Leadvale, Christ Church.

“We are preparing road works at Concordia North, St Philip in preparation to receive the majority of residents from Rock Hall. This infrastructural work – roadworks and pipe laying – will take four months,” he said.

“In the meantime, we continue to demolish vacant structures at Rock Hall and engage residents on the relocation project, and as was the practice in the past no other structures have been erected there.”

Sutherland said it was necessary for the staff and 400-plus contracted workers of the National Housing Corporation to also focus on completing homes for those whose residences were damaged or destroyed by Hurricane Elsa as they were also a priority.

“This effort will take us well into the end of 2022,” he reported.

During a site visit to the Rock Hall squatting community in May this year, Minister Sutherland said he was concerned about the conditions of the residents as they were in a dump for more than 30 years and many were living well below the poverty line.

He was also worried that the residents were living too close to the Grantley Adams International Airport and were breaching international aviation regulations.

sheriabrathwaite@barbadostoday.bb