OPPOSITION CANDIDATE for the City of Bridgetown, Patrick Todd, has asked Government to speedily help three elderly people "left out in the cold" after the Pickwick Gap/Kensington Oval resettlement project.

He referred to Patson Burrowes, Anthony Chandler and Antoinette Taylor, saying they had lived in or had property in Pickwick Gap but were yet to be compensated by Government, several months after the dust had settled on the project.

Todd said the pleas of these people for compensation seemed to have fallen on deaf ears.

He made the comment shortly after Burrowes' son, Adrian, urged Barbadians to help his mother in her battle with Government.

"This is a plea for somebody out there, in Government, the NHC (National Housing Corporation), other institutions, somebody to assist," Adrian Burrowes told the DAILY NATION.

"My mother is 72 years old. There must be somebody out there that will say: 'This can't be right.'"

The Ministry of Housing and Lands last year took the position that Burrowes was not entitled to compensation even though her son produced a document which, he said, clearly showed the ministry last year had earmarked a house on Lot No. 5 "Barbarees Gardens", Barbarees Hill, for her.

Minister of Housing and Lands Reginald Farley recently said the case of 65-year-old Chandler, who for more than a year has been living at the mercy of relatives, was being resolved.

But Todd said there was no settlement in the third case, where Taylor, whose three properties were acquired by Government as part of the Kensington Oval redevelopment project, had said she wanted more money.

Government offered $170 000 for the properties at Pickwick Gap, but Taylor's lawyer, Dr Lenda Blackman, dismissed that evaluation as being too low.

Todd said: "We in the Democratic Labour Party are calling on Government to swiftly provide these persons with satisfactory replacement houses or other compensation as sought, as a matter of urgency.

"These persons were called upon to make a sacrifice to facilitate the staging of a successful Cricket World Cup and their inalienable rights must not be eroded." (TY)