THE CAPITAL city has been losing its beaches as part of the general degradation of its environment. For years now the Gunboat and Buccaneer beaches along the Palisadoes strip and Harbour Head have been officially closed. The pollution of the Harbour and the consequent degradation of water quality has been the most important factor. Although people still do so, they enter the waters of Kingston Harbour at their own risk.
Fort Clarence in the Hellshire area of St. Catherine, the home of festival and fish, remains in use as a major beach outlet. On March 28, the Urban Development Corporation signed a lease agreement with the Florida-based, Jamerican-owned McGaw Enterprises for the management and operations of the beach. The contract came into effect on Tuesday, April 1.
The privatisation of beachfront properties remains a highly sensitive issue over rights of access. In this case it is not ownership which has been transferred from Government into private hands, but the management of operations.
In recent years, Fort Clarence has come to be dominated by stage shows. The noise levels, traffic jams and illicit activities associated with these shows pose a serious problem. McGaw Enterprises wants to return the beach to more family-oriented activities. The company plans to spend $7.5 million on renovating and upgrading the beach which has been deteriorating from abuse. Facilities will be put in and maintained to help attract the old clientele.
For years Puerto Seco Beach in Discovery Bay, St. Ann, has been privately operated by the Kaiser Bauxite Company along these lines as one of the premier beach properties accessible to the public for a fee. Dunns River under public management has gone in this direction quite successfully. The status of the falls as a leading tourist attraction on the North Coast strip no doubt influenced its preservation and development.
But most public beaches around the island have been more or less abandoned, starved of upkeep and left to fall into decay. The parlous condition of state finances, as exemplified yet again in the Estimates of Expenditure for the new fiscal year, will, quite frankly, not allow beach maintenance and development. Even the Police Force is facing cuts in areas, when crime remains the number one concern of citizens and the maintenance of law and order the number one function of Government.
Arrangements for private management of beach facilities as an investment with cost recovery and profit is certainly a superior alternative to wholesale neglect and decay under state management. The metropolis of Kingston/St. Catherine needs Fort Clarence in its old form as a quiet and safe place of relaxation and renewal with decent facilities on the beach for families.
THE OPINIONS ON THIS PAGE, EXCEPT FOR THE ABOVE, DO NOT NECESSARILY REFLECT THE VIEWS OF THE GLEANER.
