THIS is to be read together with my article in The Voice of the 29 November, 2014 in (page 4), entitled, “Can St. Lucia Live by Bread Alone?”
It is well known that all beaches around St. Lucia are held in common by the people for their enjoyment, to enrich generation after generation. Any pretence that they can be kept off it is false.
Those rights run from Palm Beach in a northerly direction to Moule-a-chique, then all around every other beach to the place of commencement. It is an un-bequeathable inheritance because it is our common heritage. Thus, it cannot be partitioned, severed or conveyed because of that commonality. It may very well be a right that transcends the Constitution since it is not a right given but pre-exists it. So fundamental is it that it cannot, unlike the Constitution, be abrogated or amended by any majority, unless it is by and with the consent of all the people of St. Lucia. Not even compensation can satisfy it.
Thus, any user, other than a St. Lucian enjoys that privilege only at our invitation, and no one can presume to abolish it or even diminish it. If St. Lucian owners of lands bounding the Queen’s Chain cannot assert such rights, by what stretch of the imagination can such be done! For those unchangeable reasons I have told the owner, (who I think fully appreciates it), that my support for the proposed project would be conditional upon one that we St. Lucians were not to be denied our customary access to come and go as we please, without hindrance; and two, there should be adequate parking.
If it is claimed that we had only been accustomed to a footpath that I would not deny. But I would reply that those were the dark days when our two bare feet were the only means of conveyance, barring horses and donkeys. And now that every man has his Lotonef reasonable accommodation must be found for him.
I do not think that any developer would find that to be too hard a request, and the gentleman with whom I spoke concurred with those views. I therefore trust that the permission of the DCA would be to the mutual benefit of all concerned so that the development could proceed with everyone walking hand in hand, foreigners and locals alike. I love to hear the sound of that.
The DCA has been made aware of what is expressed here.
Why not to build any Hotel ” BEHIND” any road and leave the beach for tourists and locals.
This is not a new idea it is practiced in Asia.