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CH&PA conducts follow-up visit on squatters at Edinburgh – moving deadline set for today
Yesterday the Central Housing and Planning Authority (CH&PA) did a check-up at the Edinburgh, West Coast Demerara area where persons were squatting on reserved government lands, just to inform them that their deadline is today and they will have to move.
A section of the reserved government lands.
Head of the Enforcement Investigative Unit Lester Kitt in an interview said that “During the month of December we heard that persons were invading a particular government land, behind by Edinburgh, opposite the stadium [Leonora Synthetic Track] over the river. On the 23rd January, we visited and had a talk with about 40 persons. One structure was framed and the other wasn’t.
We talked to them and told them to desist from squatting; they were cutting and burning bush and marking spots. On the 25th January, we went back, we saw one structure continued to go up, and while some of the people stopped the cutting of bush, others continued.
We went back on numerous occasions, and served notices on each occasion to stop, we went back seven times and on the seventh time, the demolition was done.”
A demolished structure
All of the visits were done from January 23rd and after. Eight structures were demolished and two were left being occupied because they had children. They were told by the CH&PA officials that they had up to Monday last to demolish and relocate.
On Monday, they reported to the CH&PA seeking a further extension of time, which was granted and that new deadline is today, and if they have not relocated, further demolition will be done. However, Mr. Kitt said that there were some persons within the group that rebuilt their structures and said they weren’t moving until CH&PA found lands for them to live on.
CH&PA official speaking with a former squatter.
They were advised to file applications and start the procedure to be awarded house lots. To date, the CH&PA has no idea exactly where the persons were previously located before they started to squat there, but they are looking at the possibility that they couldn’t have come from too far away.
When asked about emergency provisions made for the displacement of the squatters, he replied in the negative. Since they were constantly behind them to stop what they were doing, their only option is to apply to CH&PA, and a few of them have indicated that their names are already in the system, while a few others were willing to apply.
On the previous times that visits were conducted, not many persons were actually living there, the majority were just erecting these structures. When authorities asked them why they came there, the squatters replied that they saw other persons occupying lands, so they basically joined the bandwagon to get a piece to live on as well.
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