Thursday, March 28, 2024

Winner lashes Four Seasons

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RENOWNED BRITISH restaurant critic, Michael Winner, is chewing up the idea of the stalled Four Seasons project restarting anytime soon.“Paradise at the beach is still some way off,” Winner declared, while writing under the headline Bother on Paradise Beach, in the British paper the Daily Telegraph, last week.Winner, who has been visiting Barbados for several years and is a huge fan of the Sandy Lane Resort, where he usually stays, noted: “The dream of celebrities owning a villa facing a sandy beach in Barbados, adjacent to, and serviced by, a Four Seasons hotel turned from idyll to nightmare as a bizarre saga unfolded.”He outlined “intimate” details concerning the $380 million project which began construction in 2008 but stalled in 2009.And he cast doubt on the announced plans to restart the project even after an injection of US$60 million from the Barbados Government, saying: “The happy ending hasn’t yet arrived. Before work can start a new workforce has to be taken on under new management. If the villas are ready by 2013 I’ll be surprised.”He also criticised the construction of the hotel saying that it was on the back burner and the “concept of villas adjacent to a posh hotel is in limbo”.“No longer could villa residents expect to turn up for a pina colada or a sun lounger . . . if the hotel does go ahead, work is unlikely to start for two years. Then villa owners living next to the construction site, will face an eternity of noise and dust, as well as the public massing to swim with turtles.”He further noted: “There are no private beaches in Barbados” and suggested that the celebrity villa owners, such as Simon Cowell, would have no exclusivity but would be bombarded by the prying eyes of tourists at the beach.Professor Avinash Persaud, Executive Chairman of Paradise Beach Ltd, the body representing stakeholders involved in the project, however dismissed Winner’s comments calling him a “gossip” and saying “he has a long history of trying to undermine Four Seasons Barbados Residences and Resort by peddling old stories”.Persaud noted: “Although he views himself as special, he has no special information about the project. His bone of contention is that Paradise Beach, like every other in Barbados, is public. I am proud that it is so. Someone needs to tell him that Barbadians are proud people and that trying to undermine our country and one of its finest beaches for his own private titillation is not a game we play.” (MB)

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