Group ramps up campaign against Parks hub
An ongoing protest over plans to build a major hub for Parks in the midst of the Botanical Gardens has intensified.
A new action group is calling on Government to cut its losses and halt work on the maintenance yard, which opponents have likened to an industrial site in the heart of the gardens.
A consortium of concerned residents has organised the Take Back Our Park group in a bid to have the development turned back into preserved open space, or remade for recreation such as a playground or picnic area.
“Most people are not aware of the magnitude of this development, and the negative impact it will have on the Botanical Gardens and surrounding area,” a spokesman for the group told The Royal Gazette.
“When the project is finished, it will be a daily hub for all Parks crews as well as overnight parking for all the maintenance vehicles.
“That means around 120 people coming to the site every day from both ends of the Island. The only centrally located parks are Admiralty Park, Botanical Gardens and the Arboretum, all of which have stationary crews.
“So why bring everyone else to a central location to only have them turn around again and go back out to the other parts of the Island?”
The group believes the work goes against the spirit of legislation guarding protected areas, which says there will be a “minimum of commercial activity”.
The area had previously housed a few small single-storey buildings, which aerial pictures show was well covered by trees. It was flattened by 2003’s Hurricane Fabian and its buildings demolished the next year. The property, which lies between the formal gardens on the west side of the Botanical Gardens and Camden on the east, was subsequently deemed a brownfield site and earmarked for a central mustering station — complete with a water tower, perimetre fencing and a throughway from Berry Hill to South Road. Critics said that while the facility’s footprint will be the same, the new amenities go far beyond what existed before, and will be clearly visible in spite of landscaping.
“We really think that this operation is far more suited to the existing area at Marsh Folly, where they have operated from for the last decade and where there will be much less impact on the surrounding area,” added the spokesperson, who said the original planning application only referred to land on South Road.
“The question that needs asking is ‘why is Government spending money to put a large maintenance yard back in the middle of the Botanical Gardens in the first place?’
“How many trucks will come and go during the day and how much noise pollution will there be? Will the park now be used as a throughway for trucks from Berry Hill to South Shore? What will be the effect of all the extra traffic on South Road and near the hospital?
“These are all legitimate questions and we have not had any answers.
“We know that the work is well advanced and we know that it will take considerable courage from the Government to do this, but we are asking that for the sake of the Botanical Gardens and all the people who enjoy using it, that this work be halted.”
The protest is not a new one: when residents protested the build in 2013, former MP Allan Marshall was among those who called for a rethink.
Mr Marshall said he wasn’t a member of Take Back Our Park, but last night stuck to his guns over the development being a waste of money.
“It doesn’t make sense to me, considering what the SAGE [Spending and Government Efficiency] Commission was trying to do,” Mr Marshall said.
“All these tax dollars are going to work on an infrastructure that might not be needed, particularly if we end up outsourcing.
“Obviously there are a lot of things on Government’s plate right now with regards to trying to rejuvenate our economy, but I feel Government need to act fast on some of those SAGE recommendations.
“It must not be left to gather dust. We’ve got to get moving on it.”
Work on the site got going at the start of 2013, and immediately drew opposition from area residents. At the time, Government said that while Parks maintenance crews had been relocated temporarily to the old Marsh Folly premises, the site was not large enough to accommodate them — and Parks crews were working out of containers that were uncomfortably hot.
Over the two years since, the project has come far, with the water tower already erected.
Nonetheless, Take Back Our Park has begun a campaign via its Facebook page to pressure Government into re-examining the plans.
With former Premier Craig Cannonier now Minister of Public Works, and the Gardens squarely in the middle of his constituency of Devonshire South Central, the group’s site is now suggesting Mr Cannonier might be in a position to “stop the work”.
They can be found at the Facebook site Takebackourpark, and can be reached via takebackourpark@gmail.com.
A group opposing a Parks development in the Botanical Gardens has won approval from the Bermuda Environmental Sustainability Taskforce (BEST).
BEST head Stuart Hayward said the group had been approached by Take Back Our Park, adding: “We admire their spirit.”
Even if BEST “may not necessarily agree with all the points they raise”, Mr Hayward commended citizens taking an active interest in parks, and suggested they might prove useful as “an adjunct to the Parks Department — especially as the Botanical Gardens is really an underrated and sometimes neglected asset”.
Staff at the gardens are “hardworking and care deeply”, he added, noting the long hours put in for the extensive hurricane damage caused to the Gardens in October.
However, he said many buildings in the park were rundown, with the slat houses and exhibition halls in “urgent need of repair”. Working toilets were removed when work started on the maintenance yard, which put pressure on the remaining facilities. Mr Hayward said there had been serious issues with the Visitors’ Centre bathrooms for six or more years.
The Visitor’s Centre itself, once a prime location, now seems “neglected”, he said: an unwelcoming interior with “plumbing, design and structural problems” — while the Visitors’ Shop, closed for several years, had become a “disorderly repository for many of the books and items moved there when the library at the Agricultural Department offices was closed”.
“The Maintenance Yard is a disappointing eyesore in the middle of the gardens,” Mr Hayward added. “With deeper forethought, much could have been done to mitigate the visual impact during construction.”
The rise of a new group presented an opportunity for better dialogue, Mr Hayward said. “It would be great to have a collection of advocacy groups that felt a sense of ownership of public parklands.
“Such groups could be ready consultants, provide volunteers for annual or semi-annual spruce-ups, and contribute to security.”
