The staff from the Planning and Development Department have come in for high commendation for the record number of building permissions they have been able to deliver in eight months.
Senior Minister in the Prime Minister’s Office with responsibility for coordinating infrastructural projects, Dr. William Duguid, was effusive in praise as he gave the media an update last Friday on government’s plans to spend $15 million to press several old buildings back into operation. These will include the old Town and Country Planning Office at Block C, the Garrison, St. Michael.
He stated: “I am so proud of the work that the Planning and Development Department has done over the last eight months. Could you imagine that in eight months they were able to produce 1300 permissions?…. Thirteen hundred permissions that they were able to do… a record for the department and building on the good work that was done by former Minister Marsha Caddle, and the Board of Management, now for Planning and Development.”
Dr. Duguid continued: “And in addition because many times people get planning permissions, but don’t start… Building starts are at 700 a record as well and the planning and development being so critical to the development of this country and the growth that we’re now seeing for the first time in Barbados in years.”
Addressing the scope of works at the Garrison, The Senior Minister said the ongoing renovations at Block C would cost $1.1 million and was being undertaken by Mint Finish Construction Limited with construction expected to last six months.
Some of the work to be carried out includes fixing the structural dampness associated with a soft stone building, removing partitions for an open plan set-up and replacing carpets with tiles.
Dr. Duguid said once these issues were sorted out, the building would be “back to good use” for the 57 staffers who would be relocated back to their original base.
“It makes more sense to repurpose the existing buildings and bring them back into use than to build new ones, but you have to find a happy mix. Some departments require new [technology] because technology requirements are different and they have different needs and different expectations. Other departments can function very well and effectively in an existing building. And what we try to do as a government, is to try to find a happy mix and happy medium…” explained the Senior Minister.
He also alluded to other ongoing renovation projects by government such as the old Registration building at Coleridge Street; the old British American Insurance Company on Magazine Lane, the City, slated to be completed in the next three months.
Apart from these, work will be carried out at the three-storey building in the Pine St. Michael, which previously housed the Barbados Water Authority and the Reef Road building (behind Pelican Village) and the Treasury Building in Bridgetown, which is earmarked for retail space and condominiums.
Dr. Duguid stressed: “If we can move to a building that is brought back into good use and we don’t have to pay rent, it’s a win-win [for us].”