Over the past two weeks, the place called Chetumal Street South has become almost a national landmark - former home of the squatters and staging ground for endless arguments about squatters rights, human rights, and the right to eject illegal occupants from state land.
But beyond the simmering conflict - what about the real plans for Chetumal Street? Government has said the land is set aside for an international bus terminal and a sports arena. Sounds grand, but is it legit? The PM yesterday told the media that funding has already been identified for the arena and they are looking at proposals for the bus terminal - which he stressed does not include a terminal owned by A-D-O bus line from Mexico. Instead he said the terminal should be Belizean owned:…
Hon. Dean Barrow, Prime Minister
"Remember that we already have CDB agreement for the sort of mix-use facility that will host a basketball stadium as well. In terms of the financing for the terminal - I think there are two proposals. We need the financing but we want to be absolutely certain, in this case we want certainly to have ownership of the terminal. We are also going to put a new police station - not a sub-station a full fledge police station on the site. We know that the people on Chetumal Street proper - the residents over in Belama have some concerns about the bridge. Well hopefully the fact that a police station and God knows we could use a new building - a new police headquarters is what we are really after. Hopefully the announcement that government has every plan to construct a new police headquarters on that site might help alleviate some of their fears."
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