The Editor
The Anguillian

This Thing
Called Development

Dear Mr Editor,

I don’t want to sound like a naysayer or the voice of negativity, but my heart is burdened even as the entire island seems to rejoice with the return of our government to office and our march to ‘development’ seems set to continue.

I can’t quell my feelings of doubt, as I fly over the western end of Anguilla and see the scar that is supposed to become a lush and luxuriant golf course that seems to eat up half of the western end of our island (275 acres) .... Land that has been sold. Forever gone from the hands of Anguillians. I don’t know. I trust and have faith that the negotiations were done skillfully with Anguilla’s and Anguillian’s best interest at heart, but I remember the days when you heard words like ‘99 year lease’ associated with the development of prime real-estate and world class facilities.

But if that is not enough, I hear of advanced plans to sell even more swatches of Anguillian land, this time in the east of the island to ‘develop’ another golf course, and is there a residential complex (not housing for Anguillians of course) soon to begin in Seafeathers? Could this be the beginning of ‘gated communities’ in Anguilla? Areas where walls and ‘No Trespassing’ signs will remind us that we are not welcome?

Meanwhile there are expatriate ‘Anguillians’ making millions in real-estate, happily selling off Anguilla...to whom, I wonder? One thing I am sure of, they do not need to worry about the legacy they are leaving for their children ... their children are well provided for elsewhere, and probably here in Anguilla as well, if they were to choose to live here.
And Anguillians? We have become ostentatious in our taste and conspicuous in our consumption. More and more gleaming new 4W drive vehicles on the road than ever, and lovely are the roads to drive them on! Let us not mention the property for auction lists which are growing and growing and growing daily.

I wonder if St Maarten/St Martin, British Virgin Islands, Bermuda and the Cayman Islands are not countries that we could learn a lesson or two from? Largely invisible locals, (unless you see those who are doing well drive by in their flashy cars,) lots of money in their economy (but not in the savings accounts of the ordinary person), escalating crime (increasingly violent and committed mainly by local young men) ... but these islands are considered successful and well ‘developed’. What is it about mistakes that require that you have to make them yourself? Why is it so hard to learn from the mistakes of others?

What is the point of this thing called development if the local people become marginalized, landless, locked in the lower paying jobs at the top class resorts, and wondering when what happened to them actually did happen to them?

Or am I the only person burdened by these things? I hope not.

Avon Carty

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