By Robert A Emmanuel
Local residents – along with high-ranking members of the main Opposition Party—stood outside the Ministry of Agriculture yesterday to protest the government’s plan to transform what was once the Dunbars Experimental and Cotton Station into a housing project.
The move to clear lands at the facility came as a shock to many, with some workers at the site saying they had been caught off guard.
The opposition has now held two protests since the clearing activity—including one near the Dunbars area itself. For many local residents, the decades-old facility holds great sentimental value.
UPP leader Jamale Pringle, who took part in Wednesday’s demonstration, told Observer that, in his opinion, the government should have properly consulted with the technicians and the public prior to acting.
“We believe that a site as critical as Dunbars, there should have been a situation where the government consulted the people, consulted the technicians, and then based on the recommendations of the technicians, then one can understand,” Pringle explained.
One regular protester said, “what we have right now is not working for us and we need to change it and get people who care about the interests of the people”.
St Mary’s South MP Kelvin ‘Shugy’ Simon, who was also at the scene yesterday, said he wasn’t opposed to housing development in the country, but said there were other areas the government could have used for the project.
“In the past years, we have seen with this administration that agriculture has been on a steady decline; it needs to be resuscitated because a nation that cannot feed itself is in line for problems like we saw happening during Covid,” Simon stated.
Other UPP members present at the protest included Pearl Quinn-Williams and St John’s Rural West MP Richard Lewis.
Meanwhile, Prime Minister Gaston Browne vowed on his Saturday radio show that the government would move ahead with its plans, adding that an unnamed local bank will also set up headquarters in the area.
Dunbars workers have been told that a location in Bethesda has been earmarked as a new Research Station site.