There is no one in Sixmens who saw an environmental impact study [EIA] this project seem to be going ahead without the knowledge of nearby residents and this is why we need to act now and i am accusing town and country planing dept of not insisting on the rules if they have already giving permission to build this marina.
Sixmens – BU family member
Barbados Underground has written ad nauseam about the social fallout which is likely to occur if the unchecked immigration policy practiced by the former government is not curbed. Although we are encouraged by the public positions offered by Prime Minister David Thompson and members of his government, we are not convinced that this matter is being treated with the urgency that it deserves. We listened with interest to Minister Chris Sinckler on Friday who was reported in the media to have confirmed that a sub-committee of cabinet has been directed to address the issue of a managed immigration policy, he suggested that this policy will take a few months to roll out. We wish to suggest to the government of Barbados that the country does not need any new policy to invite illegal immigrants to leave Barbados.
Our police and immigration officials need to enforce the EXISTING laws!
It was with alarm that we listened to a report carried in the Advocate newspaper last week attributed to the Chief Town Planner Mark Cummins. He was reported to have expressed deep concern at the high level of squatting which is currently taking place in Zone 1 areas around Barbados. He further declared that his information suggests that a significant number of the squatters are non-Barbadian. The BU family should take note that because of the threat which these squatters pose to the water supply of Barbados priority will be given to relocate them by the National Housing Corporation (NHC). The fallout of this situation means that hardworking and law abiding Barbadians who have applied via legitimate channels to NHC to acquire houses will have to wait for a longer period to be assigned a house. Here is where the social fallout will likely start to manifest itself.
We have waited a few days until our blood stopped racing a little to blog about this matter. First of all we want to know what was Chief Town Planner doing over the years as this problem was allowed to develop. Are we to assume that his office was manipulated by the former government to say and do nothing? The fact that he may have been aware of this development and did nothing: how does his inaction conflict with his obligation under the Town Planning Act to ensure that our land resources are managed according to the laws of Barbados?
We take this opportunity to ask political scientist Peter Wickham to shut-up on issues which he obviously knows nothing about. While it is his right to have an opinion on what goes on around him he needs to be mindful that as a moderator on a national talk show his positions should be logically grounded and not rooted in some neoliberal ideology. We could easily add Senator Kerri Symmonds and Clyde Mascoll to the list. It looks like Professor Michael Howard may have the last laugh after all.
While we appreciate the politics of the situation Prime Minister David Thompson finds himself he should be guided that home drums beat first. It is obvious when we examine our coastal development, the large numbers of squatters and the obvious lack of planning to our physical development over the decade, the Chief Town Planner has obviously been asleep at the wheel. If it is that his authority was undermined during that period we would have thought that he had options under the law.
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