Designs being prepared for new Arnos Vale

Plans are underway to construct a modern city at Arnos Vale, simply because our current capital, Kingstown, is overcrowded.

Prime Minister Dr Ralph Gonsalves spoke about the proposed modern city last week during a Resilient Urban Development Technical Workshop for Arnos Vale and Kingstown held at the National Insurance Services (NIS) conference room.

The workshop, which ran from March 20 to 21, focussed on the revitalization of Kingstown and the development of Arnos Vale.

Addressing the gathering, the Prime Minister said that the last big expansion of Kingstown was the reclamation site along Bay Street, done during the administration of the St Vincent Labour Party over 50 years ago.

The development of the modern city is being pushed along by the World Bank which is helping to finance the design. The Prime Minister said that it is hoped that the design will be ready by the end of the year, and that the World Bank will help to fund the project.

He said that in 2001, when the Unity Labour Party (ULP) came to office, there were just about 8000 vehicles in the country but now there are over 33,000.

As a result, it is not easy to get from the eastern side of the island, where most of the population lives, to Kingstown; and increasingly from the western side, so a modern city is needed.

“We did a preliminary study, a road from Arnos Vale coming into Kingstown and a tunnel, and it surprised me that the number for the tunnel came out much cheaper, and obviously if we do that, it is a part of the whole process to deal with the traffic,” Gonsalves explained.

He noted that use of the tunnel may attract a toll and persons must get accustomed to that.

In relation to Kingstown, the Prime Minister said if we are to make ourselves more competitive, we have to build a modern port.

“The previous government built a container port at Campden Park. A port should last 50 to 60 years and [be] designed for expansion. They built it too small and it wasn’t built well,” Gonsalves said, adding that the port will be moved to the western side of Kingstown.

“We do the city, we do the tunnel, you will drop out just above where the cruise ship pier is, but we have a lot of land there to do further development in relation to tourism and other services, because where the current port is, cruise ships could be there, we will fix that up,” Gonsalves promised.

He added that the port will see the regeneration of the Rose Place/Bottom Town area, “because you can’t have the port project in isolation of the regeneration in Bottom Town”.

He said the anchor project for the development of the city at Arnos Vale is a 130-room modern referral hospital.

The Arnos Vale city is being supervised by the Arnos Vale Development Company which was founded in 2011.