Scarborough Esplanade completed... at last

The official handover by the Urban Development Corporation of Trinidad and Tobago (UDeCOTT) took place last Friday on location at Milford Road in lower Scarborough.

"Ah... at long last. This project has been long, long, long overdue," stated THA Chief Secretary Orville London.

The project was initiated during the latter part of the 1992/1996 National Alliance for Reconstruction (NAR) THA under then Chairman Lennox Denoon. It continued under the ensuing (1996/2000) Assembly with Chief Secretary Hochoy Charles at the helm.

The current People’s National Movement (PNM) Assembly assumed office in 2001 and in 2002 picked up where the previous administrations had left off.

London said the project (from 2002) was completed by UDeCOTT at a cost of $9 million, but the funds previously expended on the project could not be immediately ascertained.

Questioned in this regard, London told Newsday, "No, no, no, I don’t know what the figure was before, but I think it was a lot."

Earlier, in his address, London reported that the facility had accommodation for some 28 entrepreneurs, but warned that these places would not be available to ‘buy-and-sell’ traders. He stressed there must be a distinctive Tobago flavour to all business activity on the Esplanade. "There must be a Tobago input; you must get that slice of Tobago in there," he asserted.

"This is definitely not a Mall, it is not a market and certainly with respect to Port-of-Spain, it is not a Promenade. This is little Tobago," London declared.

There are several other projects in Tobago to be undertaken by UDeCOTT on behalf of the THA, and London said he was due to meet with UDeCOTT chairman Calder Hart, within two weeks, to review these projects, get updates and get a schedule of completion time and cost.

These projects include the THA Financial Complex; Scarborough Market; Scarborough Library; housing development projects at Blenheim, Roxborough and Castara and the Cove Industrial Estate.

Also addressing the occasion were Planning and Development Minister Camille Robinson-Regis and UDeCOTT chairman Calder Hart.