Took 'em a while ...

THE MERRICKS RESORT
BARBADOS

"The Serious Fraud Office (SFO) today charged David Ames, chairman of the Harlequin Group of companies, with three counts of fraud by abuse of position, contrary to section one of the Fraud Act 2006.

It followed a four-year investigation by the SFO, with Essex Police, into the group of companies.

The Harlequin Property scheme had endorsements from celebrities including former Wimbledon winner Pat Cash, golf legend Gary Player, football pundit Andy Townsend, TV property guru Phil Spender, and Liverpool Football Club.

Off-plan properties are those that are purchased by an investor before they have been developed or completed.

Ames, 65, a former double-glazing salesman from Wickford, Essex, began selling the properties at planned resorts across St Vincent, St Lucia, and Barbados, but many were never built, it is claimed by the SFO."

Read more: http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/768822/Harlequin-Property-David-Ames-Caribbean-fraud-Serious-Fraud-Office-Pat-Cash

Harlequin House Of Cards Tumbling

"A businessman accused of taking £300 million of British investors’ money – and failing  to build thousands of luxury properties – could be forced to stop trading this week.

Former bankrupt David Ames is alleged to have collected millions of pounds for ambitious building projects in the Caribbean and Brazil, but less than 300 properties have so far been built.

Legal papers will be lodged at the High Court in Birmingham on Tuesday to freeze the assets of Harlequin Property and its directors in an attempt to claw back money for worried investors.

It is understood that Her Majesty’s Revenue & Customs’ pensions regulator is also poised to act if a judge’s ruling is made on Friday.

A Mail on Sunday investigation has discovered that Harlequin Property – which has paid tennis star Pat Cash to feature in its promotional material – last month failed to make interest payments to investors who took out loans for deposits.

Now hundreds of financial advisers, who convinced investors to cash in their pensions, have been given just two days by the Financial Services Authority (FSA) to confirm if any of their clients have SIPP investments in the Essex-based firm, and a further three days to provide all details.

SIPPs are a personal pension plan allowing individuals to cash in their pension to invest in schemes such as property abroad." 

 

More...

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2287140/Tycoon-accused-taking-300m-British-investors-faces-freeze-assets-failing-build-luxury-homes.html#ixzz2MWIYuqTv

Whale Watching Off Barbados

Click here to follow story on our forum.

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Urbanisation vs. The Countryside: Barbados Becomes a City State

"An SOS has gone out to Government to withstand pressure from developers and save the Scotland District from the rapid urban sprawl sweeping across Barbados.

However, president of the Barbados National Trust and historian Dr. Karl Watson believes that the urbanisation of Barbados as it moves towards becoming a city state is “unstoppable”.

“The Scotland District is the last frontier that the real estate barons of this island are going to target, and not only are they going to target it, but they are going to actively develop it,” he warned.

He has reservations about Government’s ability to prevent this kind of development.

“I think that even with the best will in the world and with the imposition of controls and with the full authority that Town and Country Planning has, I think that the economic aspect of development and the economic drivers of development are so gargantuan, so all-consuming, overpowering, that they are going to break down any hurdle that we put in their way to act as a brake on this runaway development.”

The noted historian and archaeologist was delivering a lecture entitled Urbanisation vs. The Countryside: Barbados Becomes a City State at the LB Harcourt Lewis Training Room, Barbados

Public Workers Credit Union Headquarters, on Monday night. It was part of the 13th anniversary celebrations of the Urban Development Commission.

Watson said the National Trust eagerly awaited the day when the formal Cabinet decision to legally establish the National Park of Barbados would become reality.

“... We need some guarantee that at some point in time in the next 15 or 20 years there will be some green spaces left in this island that we can go out and enjoy. It has to be done,” he said.

With the assistance of maps and photographs spanning three centuries, he illustrated how “urbanisation from the east and urbanisation from the west are meeting”.
The decline in acreage for sugar production from nearly 52 000 acres in 1966 to 17 000 in 2005 was cited as an indication of how agriculture had progressively given way
to housing development.

“From North Point to South Point we are busy cementing over every available square inch that we can,” Watson observed. “We have to say enough is enough. Let us slow this process.”

“Ultimately it moves out of the hands of Government and has to come back to us the people,” he added.

“We have to decide as a people, do we collectively reduce our expectations so that we don’t continue to ruin the environment of this island [or] do we restrain our zeal for consumption?”"

Source: NationNews.com

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The World Is In A Coma: More lessons for those who would Dubaify Barbados

Proposed island to be located north of Bridgetown Port

"The islands were intended as the ultimate luxury possession, even for Dubai.  But the World, the ambitiously-constructed archipelago of islands shaped like the countries of the globe, is sinking back into the sea, according to evidence cited before a property tribunal.

The islands were intended to be developed with tailor-made hotel complexes and luxury villas, and sold to millionaires. They are off the coast of Dubai and accessible by yacht or motor boat.

Now their sands are eroding and the navigational channels between them are silting up, the British lawyer for a company bringing a case against the state-run developer, Nakheel, has told judges.

"The islands are gradually falling back into the sea," Richard Wilmot-Smith QC, for Penguin Marine, said. The evidence showed "erosion and deterioration of The World islands", he added.

With all but one of the islands still uninhabited – Greenland – and that one a showpiece owned by the ruler of Dubai, most of the development plans have been brought to a crashing halt by the financial crisis..."

Click here to read entire Telegraph article.

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Lessons In Sustainability For The Barbados Brand

Turtle Butchered

Barbados TravelAdvisor • View topic - Turtle Butchered

Speightstown Out - St. Lucy In

Prime Minister David Thompson in St. Lucy last week

A frail-looking Prime Minister David Thompson gave the clearest hint yet that government is leaning toward St. Lucy over Speightstown, St. Peter for the planned second cruise port for Barbados. This comes just over a year after Tourism Minister Richard Sealy's statement indicating that Speightstown had the nod. Yesterday the Barbados Advocate reported:

"While stating that the [Pickerings New Town] project has the potential of increasing market opportunities for St. Lucy he [the Prime Minister] said that he was “convinced” that MP for St. Lucy Denis Kellman may get a “long overdue airport and cruise terminal”.

He stated that Government has had offers from people to establish private airport facilities for private jet aircraft and a cruise terminal could be beneficial since a lot of activities take place in the north..."

Some might say that again politics seems to be trumping common sense on the location of the cruise port, as indeed, some have been criticizing the whole Pickerings/New Town project which is to be built on some of the best agricultural land in St. Lucy (much of it already owned by government). In a land-scarce country the question must be asked - what kind of example government is setting vis-a-vis reviving agriculture? It has not gone unnoticed that one of the principals of the company behind Pickerings/New Town is a high ranking member of the governing party and a former parliamentarian for St. Lucy himself. This clue to how things get done in Barbados may also be instructive on how the decision will come down at the other end of the island on the Long Beach/Chancery Lane wetlands project where yet another governing party politician has designs.

It's Official ...

... Port Ferdinand of Arrogance on the way:

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Links:

King Ferdinand Of Arrogance Finds A Port In Barbados At Last

Ugh! Yet another Six Mens marina in the works

King Ferdinand Of Arrogance Finds A Port In Barbados At Last

Work in progress on the Port Ferdinand Marina at Retreat, St. Peter, Barbados

It has been several months since this blog visited the subject of the Six Mens/Retreat marina, but that's not because a lot has not gone or is going on with that project. Quietly a few months ago work started on the project but as the old Bajan proverb goes - "You can hide and by land but you can't hide and work it" - sure enough, word of the billion dollar St. Peter residential marina project has started leaking in the local media a few weeks ago and already a firestorm has been gathering. You know, for example, that there is a big environmental concern when the daily paper through which the government speaks to the country yesterday had to carry an article trumpeting the environmental procedures that were followed in getting the project off the ground. The article glossed over the fact that the last mangrove on the west coast has already been destroyed by this project, but that may only be the first of several controversies this new marina next door to the still controversial Port St. Charles may generate before it opens for business hopefully in 2012.

Port Ferdinand Marina Master Plan

The master plan calls for just 96 luxury condos to be constructed on the 13-acre site around a lagoon with the capability for berthing 120 yachts. It also involves the construction of a roundabout and a swing bridge to facilitate vehicular and boating traffic, and beach improvements in the area will be carried out.

No word yet on whether this latest west coast monstrosity is in fact named in honor of Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile.

Links:

Club Bimshire: Protect historic sites!

Mullins Bay Blog: "This Is Monaco: Is This What We Want For Barbados?"

"Barbados in the year 2050 – The vision of some…" « Barbados Free Press

"Should Barbados Be The Next Monaco?" « Barbados Underground

End Of The World: Lessons for those who would "Dubaify" Barbados

Proposed island north of Bridgetown Port

"England is deserted, Australia and New Zealand have merged, and the man who bought Ireland has killed himself.
They were designed to make Dubai the envy of the world: a series of paradise islands inhabited by celebrities and the super-rich reclaimed from the azure waters of the Arabian Gulf and shaped like a map of the Earth. It was called The World.
As millions of tonnes of rock were dumped into the sea for the foundations, timely leaks suggested that Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie were to buy Ethiopia, Sir Richard Branson was tipped to occupy England, while Rod Stewart would border him in Scotland.
Instead it has become the world’s most expensive shipping hazard, guarded by private security in fast boats and ringed by warning buoys to keep the curious away. A development that was meant to send Dubai’s star into the firmament of First World cities has been left to the mercy of the waves and the baking winds..."

Click here for entire Times Online article.

Meanwhile, we learned this week from The Nation:

"PRIME MINISTER DAVID THOMPSON is expected to take a four-nation trip shortly to meet with investors on several projects here that have been stalled.
Speaking at a Press conference at his Ilaro Court residence yesterday, Thompson said he would visit the Britain, Canada, United States and China.
He said there were more than 12 projects that had to be discussed, and he intended to sit down and see what concerns the investors had and what issues could be resolved.
Among those to be discussed are Four Seasons, Sam Lord's Castle, "some on the West Coast and one at Merricks in St Philips, some of which have groundwork to be done and some of which are almost ready and can proceed at a moments notice..."

- NationNews.com 9/16/09

Barbados TravelAdvisor • View topic - Another Marina?

Barbados TravelAdvisor • View topic - Another Marina?

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Barbados TravelAdvisor • View topic - Things You Can Do To Help The Save Mullins Bay Effort

Barbados TravelAdvisor • View topic - Things You Can Do To Help The Save Mullins Bay Effort

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Lobby Group Calls For End To Mega-Resorts

"Mega-resorts are destroying communities and are environmentally unsustainable and lead to widespread alienation and displacement of people from their land, according to a new report from lobby group Tourism Concern.

Poor communities in developing countries, which depend heavily upon their natural resources for their livelihoods, are the hardest hit.

Huge tracts of public and privately owned land are being "grabbed" and sold off to real estate developers by governments keen to expand tourism in pursuit of economic growth. In reality, little of the profit from internationally managed resorts stays in the local economy.

The trickle down of tourism revenue to those who have lost their homes and livelihoods is minimal, particularly in the face of rising living costs associated with an influx of tourists and owners of expensive second homes. Cheap migrant labour is often drafted in from abroad to work on the developments, while opportunities for employment in the exclusive five-star resorts are limited to the most menial, poorly paid roles..."

Click here for entire article.

Can Graeme Hall Swamp And Worthing Beach Coexist

"FOR MANAGEMENT of the Graeme Hall Nature Sanctuary, the sluice gate on nearby Carib Beach, Worthing, Christ Church, is a gateway to preserving the life of their swamp.

But for some beach-users, the door should be slammed shut on the brownish, brackish water making its way through the structure into the sea, turning off sea-bathers.

The controversial gate, which controls the discharge of water not only to and from the nature sanctuary, but also various storm drains in surrounding districts, was at the centre of dispute after last week's heavy rainfall..."

Click here for entire NationNews.com article.

Music From The Gap Still A Problem For Some

"Guests staying at various establishments in St. Lawrence Gap are once more protesting the loud music coming from night-clubs in the Christ Church entertainment hub..."

Click here for entire NationNews story.

Divi Southwinds Going Green

"...A major component of going green involves minimal use of harmful or harsh chemicals.....like the introduction of a system that considerably reduces the use of chlorine in its swimming pool..."

Click here for entire CBC.bb article.