Change coming to St. John, assures BLP candidate

IT is time for change in St. John!

This is the view of Barbados Labour Party (BLP) candidate, Charles Griffith.

On Thursday night, he told supporters gathered for the BLP’s Public Meeting at Four Roads in St. John that development must come to that constituency, which has been a Democratic Labour Party (DLP) stronghold since the days of the ‘Father of Independence’ Errol Walton Barrow.

The St. John resident, who is highly respected for his work with the youth, assured residents of his readiness to serve them.

“I came to public life because I believe that St. John needs quality representation,” he stressed, highlighting his plans to push sports, culture and entrepreneurial activities, not leaving out seniors in the community.

“One of the things that I would be doing in St. John is pushing the development of sports. Culture is another area that must come alive in St. John because we have nothing happening as it relates to culture in this parish, but that will change. Entrepreneur-ship is another area that I am absolutely concerned with because unemployment in the constituency is at a high.

“I spent about 20 years in youth work. But, I am also concerned about the senior citizens in St. John. At present, 797 persons in St. John are over 75 years old and we must find something in St. John to keep these people occupied in their twilight years. And I am pledging that I will do something about that,” he said.

According to the first-time political candidate, there has been no progress in St. John under the DLP, even in the last ten years being represented at first by the late Prime Minister David Thompson and then by his wife, Mara Thompson.

“I have heard a lot of chatter that the Barbados Labour Party was in power for 14 years and did nothing in St. John. And I want to suggest that for the last ten years, the Democratic Labour Party was in power and nothing has happened in the parish of St. John,” he stressed.

“In College Savannah we have a situation where there is a community centre that is falling apart and the youngsters travel to Blades Hill in order to engage in football, because the state of the playing field is of such that football can’t be played in College Savannah. We have side roads in College Savannah that are falling apart, and we had a representative in St. John for ten years and nothing has happened. At Conset Bay, we have fishermen who are plying their trade and the jetty is falling apart and nothing has been done…”

The BLP candidate further assured supporters, “I believe that my skillsets, coupled with those of the other members of this Barbados Labour Party, will move St. John forward. I am saying to you that I pledge that I will be here for the distance because this is my parish, and this is the parish that I believe can do so much better than what happened for ten idle years, and we will fix that.” (TL)

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