The BU household will hold former Prime Minister Owen Arthur and Minister of Tourism Noel ‘Barney’ Lynch guilty of permanently disfiguring the West Coast of Barbados. We will stretch it further and state that it will be the legacy of the former Barbados Labour Party government. It has become an every day occurrence to hear Barbadians and visitors alike refer with disgust to our concrete West Coast. It is a pity Barbadians sat very quietly while our beautiful West Coast was raped of its intoxicating beauty.
We accept the point that Barbados has to improve the tourism infrastructure to polish our tourism product. What we have seen on the West Coast clearly demonstrates a lack of planning. It is amazing that during the BLP/Barney Lynch tenure hotel room stock in Barbados stagnated. After fourteen years there is no Master Plan for tourism. After fourteen long years there is tourism strategy which Barbadians can ‘touch and feel’. When one considers that tourism is the engine that drives our economy, it becomes and unpardonable sin which has been visited upon the people of Barbados by the previous administration.
It is always instructive to listen to people from outside Barbados to get their perspective. Thanks to a BU family member who sent the following news item which appeared in an online newspaper out of Mauritius.
Sean Carey makes some very interesting points in his article, “Mauritian tourism target will prove damaging” (l’express April 16th) about the dangers of building too many hotels and other resorts on the island. I have only visited the paradise island of Mauritius once, about ten years ago, and I have vivid memories of its stunning landscape, clear sea and delicious food. However, having recently been in both Barbados and some of the Grenadine islands in the West Indies, I am all too aware of what over-development could mean.
Barbados, which is fairly heavily populated even without tourists, is in danger of allowing too much development, especially condominium blocks, to be built in much of its coastal area — the up-market ‘platinum’ west coast is particularly vulnerable to losing what still makes it a highly attractive holiday destination. More importantly, there is concern among Barbadians that their access to their own beautiful beaches is gradually being whittled away, as every beach-side plot is developed. Although much of the country’s tourism sector operates at the top end of the market, I fear that it is only a question of time before some of the high-end visitors from Europe, Canada and the USA find other places to visit because of the problems of overcrowding.
The beaches in Barbados still have plenty of space on them — they are nothing like many European Mediterranean resorts in the summer, for example. But a drive down the busy coast road reveals a large number of hotels, restaurants and condo blocks which, from a tourist’s perspective, makes for an unsatisfying experience – you need to go to the cane fields of the interior of the island to feel you are in the countryside. By contrast, a visit to the Grenadines reminds you of what islands with wooded hills and beaches without buildings actually look like.
Barbados is still a lovely place for a holiday, not least because of its friendly welcome of tourists and its excellent hospitality industry. But it would be a shame if over-building began to deter high-end tourists who then treated it merely as a hub (because it has a good airport) for the rest of the Caribbean.
All “paradise islands” have to balance short-term development profits and employment prospects against the long-term sustainability and the interests of their citizens.
Kate GARDINER
Source: l’express
We find the perspective a sobering and one which all Barbadians should be exposed.
Barbados Underground 
The biggest West Coast rape is yet to come.
The last significant “opening to the sea” at Six Mens, St. Peter where all the “safari” Land Rovers stop to show their passengers what the West Coast used to look like before it was regally raped is getting another marina.
Bigger that Port St. Charles it will dominate (destroy) the whole area and like Port St. Charles will be gated and guarded to protect the “money laundered” apartments of a few millionaires who come to Barbados for a couple of weeks a year only.
This cannot and must not happen.
It is a major test to see if the local populace has any say at all.
NO MORE MARINAS EVER, NO MORE MARINAS EVER. NO MORE MARINAS EVER, NO MORE MARINAS EVER, NO MORE MARINAS EVER, NO MORE MARINAS EVER, NO MORE MARINAS EVER, NO MORE MARINAS EVER.
Krzysztof Skubiszewski we only have to print something with West Coast and you appear! It is actually a compliment we have paid to you. If Barbadians fifteen years ago had your zeal and persistence our West Coast would not have been transformed to an ugly duckling that it is now.
We know that this is not as sexy a topic as some of the others but in many ways it may be equally as important for Barbados to get our physical land use policy right.
There’s a remote chance the west coast rape can be temporarily stopped. Temporarily only, but still.
Before it becomes as ugly as the south coast.
Today in Britain and the U.S. there are people who a year ago thought they were rich wondering how they’ll pay their next credit card bill. Or where to find enough cash to fill-up their SUV.
The world financial crisis is real. Thousands and thousands who planned on buying a Barbados condo and thought the boom would never end are now looking for new jobs. And there aren’t any.
Don’t believe me?
This headline today in all the British papers.
“Britain was facing “the first real economic crisis” in a generation, a senior Government minister has admitted.
“The economy faces testing times,”
Baroness Vadera, a business minister and former adviser to Gordon Brown, made the comment as the price of oil experienced its biggest one-day increase in almost 20 years.
The new condo owners better be prepared in the future to swim, row or sail across the Atlantic if they want to enjoy their tropical vacation properties.
The price of progress; that’s what we say, but who benefits. We locals are being pushed farther inland and on the plains. Even the beautiful inland ridges are now being gobbled up by the rich and famous. If that is not bad enough the plains are being bought up by you know who and offered to us at high prices. The beauty of Barbados to the locals soon would only be seen by those who can offord a T.V
“It is a pity Barbadians sat very quietly while ths beatiful West Coast was raped of its intoxicating beauty” – Barbados Underground
While it is true that many, many Barbadians continue to do NOTHING to stop this brutal destruction of our West Coast, to a greater extent, and of our South Coast, to a lesser extent, it is yet grossly and totally unacceptable to our party – PDC – that there is NO EXISTING CONSTITUTIONAL POLITICAL DEMOCRATIC FRAMEWORK that could have been possibly assisting those Barbadians, who would really have been wanting in the national interest to prevent such excessive naked and wilful aggression against our coasts, in any possible carrying out of their rights and duties under such a framework.
Also, while it is true that there are some existing constitutional legal political approaches and mechanisms that should have long ago been used by many of our people, or by some persons skilled in the workings and nuances of these approaches and mechanisms and who thereby would have been letting it clearly and publicly be known that they would have been operating on the behalf of the majority of our people, to at least help slow these kinds of naked monstrous happenings, it is still totally disgusting that the vast majority of people of Barbados would have been having NO MODERN PROGRESSIVE DEMOCRATIC POLITICAL ARRANGEMENTS THAT WOULD HAVE BEEN HELPING TO BALANCE THE NATIONAL SOCIAL INTERESTS WITH THOSE OF THE NATIONAL/FOREIGN PRIVATE SECTOR INTERESTS, OR HELPING TO PROPERLY DETERMINE WHETHER OR NOT, OR TO WHAT EXTENT, SUCH SORDID PHYSICAL DEVELOPMENTS ON OUR COASTS SHOULD OR WOULD HAVE BEEN IN THE INTERESTS OF THE COUNTRY’S FURTHER DEVELOPMENT.
Therefore, we in PDC say this: that had the people of Barbados had sovereign control of this country, many of those said local and foreign private sector projects as well as various kinds of damning money-wasting state projects in the country would NOT have come about in Barbados. That is why we shall continue to state categorically that it is fundamentally and totally wrong at this stage in our national development for the Governor General/Crown, the Cabinet and, by extension, the non-Cabinet members of Parliament, ALONE to still have principal responsibility for management of the political direction of this country, and therefore why we shall continue to argue that the time has truly come for the vast majority of people in Barbados to seriously consider the election of a future PDC Government that shall make sure that Constituents of Barbados will, in the foreseeable future, debate and pass the laws of this country; and that there shall under a PDC Government be the creation of Constituency Assemblies in which these constituents will be debating and passing the laws of this country. Thus, what the DLP is serving up right now in terms of Constituency Councils is totally totally inadequate and defecient in contrast to what we are going to put in place in this country. We in PDC say Sovereign power to the people of Barbados!!
PDC
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Quit your belly aching alright. You pay a price for progress and you’ve got it folks!!! Barbados is the MOST DEVELOPED country in the Caribbean and its what Bajans go around flaunting…”Barbados is a first world country right???? Mr. Arthur always referred to it as a world class society. Well…..WELCOME TO MY NIGHTMARE and YOURS TOO!!! Maybe this will be a real eye opener and Bajans will start to be PRO-active rather than RE-ACTIVE.
If if the economy is slowing down and the price of air travel is skyrocketing it will not deter the rich and famous who buy luxury properties in Barbados. These investors are mega-rich and even if the interest wanes a little the small land space of Barbados will likely continue to make this a problem.
I just love the DLP for not listening to the BU family. Far from stopping the rape of the West Coast, the DLP is accelerating the “rape” and moving on to St.Lucy the birthplace of Right Excellent E.W.Barrow. see the following:
http://www.nationnews.com/news/local/LEAD-coming-in-to-land-up-north-copy-for-web
So under the DLP we are to get a second marina on the west coast, a new airport for private jets in St.Lucy and possibly a man made island off-shore. Hopefully I will soon get my income tax refund.
I also see that PM Thompson is trying to rehabiltate Forbes Burnham’s image. He probably hopes that will placate Negroman as he allows the illegal Guyanese to stay in Barbados.