Watson: Save Scotland District
President of the Barbados National Trust Dr Karl Watson (right) accepting a gift from UDC chairman Gordan Bispham. (Picture by Lennox Devonish)
Wed, August 25, 2010 - 12:00 AM
An SOS has gone out to Government to withstand pressure from developers and save the Scotland District from the rapid urban sprawl sweeping across Barbados.
However, president of the Barbados National Trust and historian Dr. Karl Watson believes that the urbanisation of Barbados as it moves towards becoming a city state is “unstoppable”.
“The Scotland District is the last frontier that the real estate barons of this island are going to target, and not only are they going to target it, but they are going to actively develop it,” he warned.
He has reservations about Government’s ability to prevent this kind of development.
“I think that even with the best will in the world and with the imposition of controls and with the full authority that Town and Country Planning has, I think that the economic aspect of development and the economic drivers of development are so gargantuan, so all-consuming, overpowering, that they are going to break down any hurdle that we put in their way to act as a brake on this runaway development.”
The noted historian and archaeologist was delivering a lecture entitled Urbanisation vs. The Countryside: Barbados Becomes a City State at the LB Harcourt Lewis Training Room, Barbados
Public Workers Credit Union Headquarters, on Monday night. It was part of the 13th anniversary celebrations of the Urban Development Commission.
Watson said the National Trust eagerly awaited the day when the formal Cabinet decision to legally establish the National Park of Barbados would become reality.
“... We need some guarantee that at some point in time in the next 15 or 20 years there will be some green spaces left in this island that we can go out and enjoy. It has to be done,” he said.
With the assistance of maps and photographs spanning three centuries, he illustrated how “urbanisation from the east and urbanisation from the west are meeting”.
The decline in acreage for sugar production from nearly 52 000 acres in 1966 to 17 000 in 2005 was cited as an indication of how agriculture had progressively given way
to housing development.
“From North Point to South Point we are busy cementing over every available square inch that we can,” Watson observed. “We have to say enough is enough. Let us slow this process.”
“Ultimately it moves out of the hands of Government and has to come back to us the people,” he added.
“We have to decide as a people, do we collectively reduce our expectations so that we don’t continue to ruin the environment of this island [or] do we restrain our zeal for consumption?” (GC)
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Government will not protect Scotland district because they have sent the country spiralling toward a city-state designation. “Where there is no vision the people preish.” The get-rich mentality has wreaked havoc on the landscape for the past fifty years and it shows no sign of abating. What a travesty!
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Comment LinkGood idea…..but unfortunately too late!!!
What do they say about the horse having left the barn!!!!
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Comment LinkIt is never too late to create change…maybe organizing a march against the overdevelopement of Bim on the gov’t bldg would cause the politicians to think twice.
I was just in Bim a few weeks ago and really admired the beauty but could not overlook the overtaking on Bim by non-Bajans.
Why is it that the gov’t in many countries can limit who owns land in their countries but it does not appear to happen in Bim.
Greed will be the down fall of this beautiful country!
Stop the madness of over developement of the country or start building eatable houses because that is all we will have soon.
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Comment LinkIt is already too late when beachland is valued in 2005 as worth $20, 500.00 and by 2008 it is valued at $3,315 000 which no poor Bajan can afford to upkeep. Beachhouses have been erected without approval and former public access to the beach fenced in so it is clear that this land is now slated for the rich foreigner not the poor Bajan.
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Comment LinkHow do we sign up to help stop this development of the last open spaces in Barbados. Let the rich go to the west coast and leave this land unspoiled. Why after years of no one wanting to own land in Cattlewash are they wanting to come and build now. Could it be they are looking for open spaces and not the crowded west coase which they destroyed with all the horrible buildings and close most of the windows to the see.
Leave us alone and the rest of the world to enjoy the beauty of the Scotland district and the east coast road.
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Comment LinkIt can only be backward thinking and massive ignorance when a nation of literates as so said, allows acute financial greed and lack of caring of their descendants and the natural environs of the Scotland District to be devastated and transformed into concrete.Coastal Zone water PH balance and carbon dioxide levels will be effected by such indulgance. Dynamic Pressures exerted on the underlaying rock formation can also be stressful to a point of errosion.So called brainiacs and land developers; Good luck to your distruction of a National Coastal Zone and Wild life Park .A concerned national.
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