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Attorney General and Minister of Legal Affairs, Dale Marshall.
The new police station being constructed in Hastings, Christ Church has been plagued by delays, but the work is now nearing completion and should be done in a few months’ time.
Attorney General and Minister of Legal Affairs, Dale Marshall made the disclosure while speaking during the Estimates debate in the House of Assembly yesterday. As his ministry took centre stage, he indicated that reports from the project unit within the Ministry indicate that the building should be handed over to the Royal Barbados Police Force and opened by June or July this year.
The Attorney General’s comments came as he expressed concern about the project, started under the previous government, which when completed is expected to be the new home of the Hastings and the Worthing Police Stations. Marshall suggested that the station, which is being built through an agreement between the National Insurance Department and the Ministry of Finance, is quite extravagant.
“That station is perhaps overbuilt in many respects. I have to say that if I had the responsibility at that time, it might not have been such a large edifice. It is replete with multiple conference rooms, I think it has two cafeterias and things of that sort, and really it is perhaps money that could have been spent otherwise,” he said.
AG Marshall added, “We have police stations on very valuable real estate and to the extent that the Ministry of Finance would be willing to accommodate a proposal, it would be good if we could see the real estate that those stations currently stand on, if it is possible to segregate those resources, to see that real estate disposed of, put into other use, and those funds made available for the construction of other police stations.”
He made the point while noting that the conditions of many police stations across the island are deplorable, and while over the last 20 years some new stations have been built, more work remains to be done. His remarks came also, as he admitted that there are some stations that in their current locations do not serve the country in the best way and their “usefulness and practicability” in modern Barbados have to be re-evaluated.
“It has been known for a long time for example, that the station at District ‘C’ really does not serve as a proper functioning police station. That is a police station that worked when Barbados was an agricultural economy in the 1920s and 30s and prior to that. It does not work in a modern Barbados. In fact for the longest time we would have known that the best place for a new station for St. Philip would actually be in Six Roads. Belleplaine also needs to have a police facility returned to Belleplaine, but there are certain obvious challenges that we face,” he stated.
Marshall said as long as there is growth in the economy in the coming few years, he would be “making a demand” of the Minister of Finance, to look seriously at re-establishing a police station in Belleplaine, St. Andrew and relocating District ‘C’ to Six Roads, in order to better manage St. Philip, the fastest growing parish in the country. He added that when the economic situation improves, a case would be proposed for the station at Boarded Hall, St. George to be relocated as well. (JRT)