Smith Cove spruced up to celebrate preservation
Smith Cove clean-up
(CNS): The community activists who spearheaded the campaign to save Smith Cove from developers organised a community clean-up and a celebration this weekend. Soon after CNS first reported that part of the much-loved, traditional beach spot, also known as Smith Barcadere, was going to form part of a luxury condo development, Morne Botes and other local activists came together and launched an extremely successful campaign, which ended earlier this month when government agreed to buy the land to preserve as a public beach spot in perpetuity.
Now that the cove has been saved, a gathering that had been planned as a protest was turned into a clean-up and celebration instead.
Many people turned out for the event, enthused by the success of people pressure. New picnic benches have also been donated and they were painted on Saturday to mark the success of the campaign. On Sunday morning volunteers cleared up the beach area as well as the bush on the land that government has acquired next to the site that will become a public park.
Botes, who organised the early morning clean-up, said he was delighted with the success of the campaign and government’s decision to buy the land from the developer and ensure that the Cayman public will always have access to the popular spot. The volunteers started work early, some arriving at 5:30am while it was still dark, and the trash they collected was removed with the help of a local construction company.
The premier confirmed that government had come to an agreement in principle to buy the land at the end of the LA meeting and legislators voted unanimously to appropriate some $5 million from the Environmental Protection Fund to acquire the land and cover the costs of enhancements.
The developers have agreed to sell the land to government at the price they paid, when the land was purchased from one of Dart’s landholding companies, which had acquired the property in a deal with Stan Thomas to buy land along the Seven Mile Beach corridor.
Government has also agreed to cover the costs the developer incurred buying the land and its planning cost for its application for the condo development.
Category: Local News
We have a lot of jerk chicken in Cayman, sadly a lot of jerk comments as well.
Only for you self serving people who come here, figure you walk some dogs around and pick up some garbage but most importantly spread around some gratuities then you will get your status and then watch out!
What an honor for Mr. Botes. Can he clean up down at his job site in West Bay while he is at it?
Great that this treasure is to be preserved. Just please do not tet the Easter Campers ruin it for everyone else with the massive tents, dogs, using the public electricity and trash. This beach should become a no camp zone at Easter.
what a relief that this acquisition has been accomplished. Now that we can rightly claim it as our own I trust that everyone using the beach and surrounding area will keep it clean and not abuse it.
Happy beach days!
only small minded fools can find solace in this whole nonsensical affair……
Tired of the negativity, so I’ll say this: Thank you to everyone who encouraged and assisted with the sale of Smith Cove to the CIG; thank you to the CIG for stepping up and preserving a(n) historic gathering place of the people; thank you for those who came out to clean up the area, and thank you for those who will in the future continue to clean up that which those who use the area should clean up themselves.
In my area, I regularly pick up the “float-up” as well as the drop-off from the beach. I don’t mind. I wish I lived in a place where people always packed out what they packed in. So it goes.
Politics aside, we should be promoting the preservation of public beach acess, historic public beach areas. No corporation nor rich person should be able to purchase that which our kin worked for to provide for us. The same is true on the Sister Islands, although the development is a little behind Grand Cayman. I still can’t believe that the CIG allowed Point-of-Sand to be sold. What were you not thinking? ??? Doesn’t it matter?
Hope they took those ugly ass picnic tables with them when they left.
If Cayman thinks that it was a petition that saved Smith Cove, y’all be drinking di kool-aid mon. This was planned, then the public outcry was waited for, and bam, PPM to the rescue. Just in time for elections.
How did we rescue what was already protected public land? The developer setback was never encroaching upon any part of the usable coastal feature that is today’s Smith Cove. #moronspilferingEPFmoneyforvotes
and kick backs… what’s 5% of $5,000,000?
That would be a udp government deal.
People power and government working hand in hand. Usually ends in a good result.
Small price to pay to keep the locals on that side of the island and out of the way of the real developments on SMB.
Small price to pay considering it’s prettier than seven mile beach.
You sound a lot like a jerk. Are you a jerk?
Love the headline…we so wanted it preserved that we have to clean up all the sh*t that the people who love it and want it preserved leave there…classic, and sadly the same story on any beach, wooded area or otherwise…I walked past a canal this morning, full of plastic bottles…a disgrace.
Why didn’t you pick them up? You’re part of the problem.
‘Cos I cant swim a$$hole, what’s your problem? What did you do for Cayman lately? Can you tell me why I should pick up other peoples junk? You like it so much you do it.They should be fined for littering and you should be fined for being the aforementioned piece of anatomy.
I pick up other peoples trash on my morning beach walks every day, thank you. Why not be the change you would like to see?
I would suggest you use all the golden deity aura you have to pursuade CIG to embark on a major education program on litter prevention and to employ some nazi with a black shiny beaked cap ( perhaps you could apply?) to police it. Picking up other people’s litter is not the answer. Getting them to take it home and dispose of it properly is.
Every Saturday for the past 6 months, my neighbour and I clean up the garbage tossed along Beach Bay Road. Every week we collect at least 6 green garbage bags of plastic bottles, beer bottles, Styrofoam lunch containers… yes, even full bags of garbage chucked in the bushes. Until people are educated and anti littering is enforced, I am afraid that public participation in cleaning up Smith Cove will have to be an ongoing event.
Same goes for ALL of the beaches in EE and NS. Filled with garbage from locals who don’t actually care about anything. It’s just a place to drink and smoke.