PM calls for upkeep of town centres

Property owners across Barbados’ town centres are being urged not to ignore their upkeep.

This comes from Prime Minister Mia Amor Mottley.

While discussing ways to revitalise Speightstown during the Second Ideas Forum at Alexandra School Hall, Queens Street, St. Peter, she also insisted: “There has to be a responsibility for us to maintain buildings and properties in our town centres.”

However, Prime Minister Mottley, cognisant that some owners of properties might be finding it difficult to keep up with the necessary maintenance in recent times, hinted that Government could find a way to assist by way of a special fund.

“Even if it means in some instances Government has to put together a Low-Interest Fund that owners can borrow money, but you have to be able to keep your buildings painted.

“The same way you get the benefit of a higher valuation of the property in a town centre, it comes with a burden. And the burden is that you have to keep your property in good shape,” she stressed.

“Part of the difficulty is that the last decade was a rough decade. But we have to move to a point now where we treasure our town centres and we begin to look and see what is the aesthetic that we want to promote, that makes us first as Barbadians proud, and others then admiring what we are proud about.” (TL)