Who Said There Was a Land Shortage in Barbados

I have heard it said on numerous occasions ever since I first had the good fortune and pleasure to start visiting Barbados that there is a severe land shortage for building houses. Ask the Prime Minister David Thomson and I’m sure he will tell you that there is a lack of land for building residential properties is a very real problem.

I personally don’t think there is a shortage of building plots on Barbados yet, I think the problem is that there are literally thousands upon thousands of building plots all over the island, that are owned by either Bajans that have moved abroad, people that own family land and are just holding on to it and it will be passed on again once they die, and land that the ownership of is unknown or has been lost through time.

For example there is street round the corner from where I live and I drove along it today and counted 27 vacant and overgrown building plots. I know that it is hard to believe that there can be 27 building plots in one street in a country where there is such a huge land shortage. There are hundreds of streets like the one I have mentioned in the Parish I live in Christ Church, and this situation is a fairly common one in most of the other parishes in Barbados.

I feel that the Government should start a database off every single vacant residential building plot and who actually owns them. Once this has been done, all the plots where ownership is lost or cant be proven, the land should be used to build government houses for those poor people that are working hard and struggling in life. Prime plots should be sold to help pay for this project.

I would take it one step further and lands where the land tax hasn’t been paid for say 10 years, the owners should be contacted and told if they don’t start paying their land tax within a stipulated time period, it will be sold with a percentage going to the government for future social housing projects.

I don’t think it would cost the Barbados government a huge amount of money to put together a small team of highly motivated and hard working individuals to get this project off the ground and in the long term the benefits would be amazing

I know David Thomson has a huge task ahead of him in not only solving the land shortage problem in Barbados but also the many thousands of poor people that are living in unbelievable housing conditions, I have been in houses that many people in the UK wouldn’t believe was possible in a country such as Barbados that they perceive as being a wealthy land.

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