President’s Grounds Row

A three-member “technical team” of the St Ann’s/Cascade/Hololo residents will meet with technical staff of the Urban Development Company Ltd (Udecott) on the plans for the President’s Grounds.

This development follows a meeting between Prime Minister Patrick Manning and Dr Deborah Pinder, interim chairperson of the committee formed by the residents, technical adviser Assad Mohammed and Curtis Bateau and the chairman of the Udecott, Calder Hart. The meeting started at 2.45 pm and took about half an hour.

Residents last week wrote Manning complaining about their dissatisfaction with the discussions taking place with Hart. Three meetings took place on February 9, March 8 and April 27.

Speaking to Newsday after the meeting Bateau said, “from the PM’s standpoint we should have meaningful negotiations from now on.”

The talks with Manning did not delve into the plans for the grounds but focused on the negotiation process, Pinder said, adding that the PM’s office will contact the committee about the next meeting. Pinder said residents had been getting “mixed signals” with plans and talks were going in circles. Udecott had presented plans early in the discussions but changes were subsequently made.

Pinder said residents had wanted the discussions to take place with their “technical people” (an architect and planner) to come up with a plan that was acceptable to the whole community.

This did not happen and Udecott presented plans to them without consultation.

Bateau said the main issue was not the grounds being taken away but the perimeter wall of the PM’s residence being shifted one-third into the grounds.

He said residents have been protesting all along about other facilities such as the community centre being taken away.

Bateau said the residents wanted to keep the community centre out of discussions because the protest was about the grounds. He said if Udecott wanted to provide a new community centre and other amenities, residents would accept them but the issue was about retaining the use of the grounds.

Pinder said the PM was under the impression that the protest by residents earlier this year was politically motivated. She assured him there was no political agenda.