Submitted by Hallam Hope
Surfer's Point
If you are planning to fish, catch a sunset or, go surfing or get a sea bath at Surfer’s Point, BEWARE! The main access path which you would drive to get there has been blocked by a metal stake cemented in the middle of the road. If you don’t know it is there and it is late in the evening your car could easily be damaged and/or you harmed. The stake is low enough not to be seen and high enough to pierce the bottom of your vehicle.
This Window to the Sea is particularly popular for surfers and sea bathers alike. I have not noticed any line marks to suggest that this is not state land and there is certainly no sign indicating “Stay of The Property. Private Property”. Is this legal? Was a prior obstruction removed after the intervention of the authorities? Is this another Windows to the Sea Issue.
For photos and reports visit Hallam Hope Facebook. Does anyone care enough to pursue this?
Barbados Underground 
Would love to know the motive behind sinking that 3×4 in the middle of the road.
Who owns the land?
Who is to be held accountable for damage to limb and property?
@BAFBFP
Do you see the power of your pen?
Hey Hey… Dave mah man I am gobsmacked…!
Man this thread like it ain’ wukin’. Lemme try a different tack.
HORSES are known to frequent the area and this development is sure to result in serious injury to a HORSE far less a car… It should be of major concern to members of the BEA…
bajans have to get serious about foreign developers coming in and buying up beach property, and preventing them from accessing their own country. I think sooner or later the general public will have no beach to go, all along the christ church area beaches are going to be blocked by hotel owners. Meanwhile the government is not putting their foot down and preventing these actions, because they are just looking at the millions of dollars being paid to them by these rich people who comes in and pay for beach property, and make the land private property.
Recently Barbadians have demonstrated concern at the practice by ATVs tearing up the beaches with their stunts and in the process destroying natural life in that environment. Could this be a case where the environmentalists are saying enough is enough? Is it a boundary dispute issue? So far nobody is talking.
The more I read and experience first hand with regards to beach access and windows to the sea the more depressed I get. Just as there is zoning and to my knowledge fairly stirct zoning at that with regards to agricultural land vs, where the typical bajan can build. There should be such zoning for coastal areas. Just the other day I was on the west coast trying to go to a beach I had never been to before to be told park the car else where and walk. As this particular access to the beach was a private road and the owners were doing the public a favour by not closing it off, in the meanwhile the beach is “public” right and further there were vehicles parked on the begining sands of the beach…. I guess the sand if “private”. Granted it’s not the fact that we had to park else where it was the fact that we were told these people are doing you a favour!
P.S granted this was the only access to that beach for a good few miles unless you were to go through the hotels of Royal Pavilion. We chose not to bother as it left a creepy feeling altogether. upon telling a friend who didn’t seem surprised their response was… This is a situation that is bigger than the average person and maybe even government as some of these owners could very well buy the island.
Bajans are beginning to accept that “de beach” no longer “belong to we”.
Bajans along the West and South coasts have been pushed away from the beach and now have to find a hole in the Hotel and Condo “wall to get to the sea.
Some are still able to live some of the Beach culture I enjoyed as a boy. Fishing,swimming,hulling waves( now surfing),beach cricket and football.
But gone are most of the Grape and Coconut and Breadfruit trees that provided all day meals when we added roast fish and crabs or lobsters.
The younger generation are being socialised to a life that does not include the Beach or “bading in de sea”.
I cherish the memories of the days of my youth.
I remember hulling waves before getting ready for school in the morning.
Sweeeeet
Amazing that we have many of the luxury dwellings on our coastline advertising private access to the beaches. This only serves to confirm what most Barbadians know, there public access BUT how do you access?
It all started when a previous government gave the developer at Port St Charles permission to integrate Heywoods old road into his property, when we all know that the same Heywoods Old Road was the boundary of the High Water Mark when ,and therefore the property of the people of Barbados. And the MP for that area, told us that he has no apology to make.
I remember a time when Sandy Lane Hotel had blocked out locals from accessing a long used beach access road. The government of that day,under the Dipper, compulsory acquisitioned that access road ,which is still in use today,
Why blame the foreigners? the guilt is closer to home. We would sacrifice anything and I mean anything, for the sake of an extra dollar.
It would not surprise me, if one day a steel chain is placed across Broad Street to stop vehicular traffic and pedestrians, by someone who wants extra space to careen his yacht.
We have lost the ability to stand up for anything…we therefore fall down for everything. Hypocrisy, cunning and deceit have become part of our peculiar institution.
Well here I was believing that it was a Bajan White thing only now to discover that it is yet another example of expats doing de dog
@TO BOSUN DON’T BE AN IDIOT HOW COULD YOU STUPIDLY BLAME ONE GOVERNMENT FOR THE RAPE OF OUR LAND OPEN YOUR MIND IT IS ALL PARTIES THAT HAVE BEEN AND STILL IS IN POWER RIGHT NOW. THE GOVENMENT OF BARBADOS COULD PUT LEGISLATION IN PLACE TO STOP FOREIGNERS FROM BUYING UP ALL OF OUR LAND IN 2008 COW WILLIAMS SOLD $31,000,000.00 WORHT OF LAND TO TWO YOUNG MILLIONARES ONE LIVING HERE THAT OWNS WESTMORELAND AND THE OTHER A YOUNG SWISS 39 YRS OLD WHO ONLY RELOCATED TO BARBADOS IN LATE 2007, NOW TELL HOW COULD ANY GOVERNMENT ALLOW SUCH. THE MONSTROUS BUILDING DOWN ST.JAMES THAT B.N.B FINANCE TO THE TUNE OF BDS$640,000.00 UNSECURED IS NOW IN TROUBLE, THE BUILDER OBVIOUSLY CANNOT RELEASE THE TITLE DEEDS TO THE TENANTS SINCE BNB IS NOW ‘”HOLDING” ON TO THEM, IF IT HAD TO GO COURT THEY WOULD OF COURSE HAVE TO HAND OVER THE TITLE DEEDS.BUT MY POINT IS THIS THIS LAND DEVELOPER OR WHATEVER HE IS CALLED DOES NOT EVEN HAVE A PROPER STATUS HERE BUT HE CAN WALK INTO A BANK AND BORROW THAT SORT OF MONEY, NOW HE WANTS MORE TO COMPLETE THE PROJECT BUT IS HINDERED BECAUSE OF HIS IRREGULAR STATUS, THE MILLIONARES THAT BOUGHT THOSE LOTS AT APES HILL HAVE IMPORTED A LIFESTYLE THAT WOULD CAUSE YOU TO SHAKE YOU HEAD ALL YOU NEED TO DO IS CHECK QUINTESSENTIALLY ON THE WEBSITE, IF YOU ARE RICH YOU CAN HAVE ANYTHING AND THEY BRING IT TO YOUR DOOR FOR YOU.MANY DIRTY THINGS ARE HAPPENING ON THE WEST COAST AND WE SIT AND TURN A BLIND EYE AND THESE THINGS HAPPEN UNDER THE GUISE OF BUYING LAND
Well when the rich foreigners buys the land . Then they controll the prices of the real estate market. which in turn makes it hard for the native to own property because of the escalating prices. Then the foreigner becomes the landlord and the native have no other choice than to become the tenantbecause they have been priced out of the market.Bajans need to wake up and kick them useless politicians out of office.
@ac. So the wheel has gone full cirlce. We are going back to the Tenantry or as one MTW directional sign indicated up to the mid ’70’s, the Nigger Yard.
@Bosun
Then along comes the slums because of the high cost of rent the natives would have to pay.
Then the same government who gave the country away to the foreigners decides they would step in and try to help the poor, by trying to supplement incomes as a way of helping them to pay the rent ,but guess what happens the harding working taxpayers help to foot these bills . And the beat goes on.
On the seaside of the issue the boundary should be half way between mean high tide and mean low tide, not sure if that is over one year or more. No one really uses that definition anyway, often the vegetation line is taken as a guide….because long story short , the land surveyor has the power under the law to define it.
As for access there was a time in Barbados when they were many private accesses along the coast especially the in the West… This was before tourism and no one really cared about the land like they do today. Old plans show these accesses all the time, sometimes they are shared by a number of property owners in the area. There was a tradition on New Years day or Good Friday every 3-5 yearsof tying a rope across the entrance to an access….This was not to stop acesss, but essentially to reinforce claim to the access, so it would remain private. I have not seen this done in at least 20years. It is safe to say that all these private accesses not barred for more than 7 years can be claimed for public use…if they were being used as such for such a time period. In any case a shrewed land owner will not fight the case as they would loose, and the access will become formally public with signage etc…..and the increase in traffic. They are lots of other subtlties and strange scenarios, and land law’s here should not be assumed to be anything like the nations from which the foreigners come from. Post-emancipaction led to the creation of quite a few bizzare land laws to restrict and frustrate the freed negros…..these laws are unenforcible today for political reasons,,,,yet many remain on the books.
Perhaps our Right -of-Way laws may be the same as the UK’s, where a frequently used path becomes a public right- of- way,and the only way that a land owner is able to reclaim his land is when and if the public stops using it. There was a case in the UK some years ago, where the public was short cutting it to their village across a farmers field.He was powerless to restrict access. His lawyer offered him an ingenious way to stop the public from crossing his field…………………..Put a bull in the field.It worked overnight.
Read and think is Brazil a small country
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5ggYTMTbNOrnfdteETaMXMHLT9P8wD9GGGINO3
Bajan politicians are a joke
Its all good to express oneself on a medium like this but really and truly it all evaporates in the essence of time.A multitude of signatures vehemently expressing disgust,disdain and all of the other adjectives addressed to the proper political entity and copying the Prime Minister may and I mean (MAY????) have some impact if not just to stir some aspect of being a BARBADIAN,,,,this and copying same to the local press(though such efforts seem to be repeatedly swept under the proverbial carpet) MAY cause some tremor that could lead to a 9.9 on the silent,dormant and inactive Richter Scale of OPINION……
I am watching a development (happening) on the greens north east of the Gymnasium.That’s on the left of the access road from the Gymnasium to Fort George Heights/Kent Road, where three trees have been planted outside a home , on lands which I assume, belong to the Gymnasium/Government. ………….Perhaps the Gymnasium has planted those trees.