Mayor Bradley Says Flooding Highlights Need for Real Planning

Darrell Bradley

The flooding in Belize City has highlighted the very real poverty which existed long before the rains came. The reality is that in certain zones in the Southside, any real crisis was caused not by the rain, but by the living conditions of those in the area. In the Antelope Street Extension Area, there was a real threat caused by illegal connections – a veritable network of wires providing electricity to entire neighbourhoods joined by London Bridges. Especially two weeks before a general election, that pervasive, widespread poverty is appalling. In the context of the flood and recovery efforts, Mayor Darrell Bradley says that it is cause to contemplate very seriously a real, comprehensive plan for development.

Darrell Bradley, Belize City Mayor

“In an emergency like this you get a sense of people’s real living conditions and our need to focus on areas of poverty alleviation…our need to focus on housing conditions, our need to focus on critical areas of development. And it is very telling and very sad that the people who are most affected are the people who generally are in the most need. So I think your question does have a significant amount of merit in terms of saying that we need to be comprehensive in urban planning on a whole. The areas of Gungulung, for example…the areas of Holy Emmanuel that took heavy waters…those are the areas in Belize City which have developed in a haphazard, unplanned area. And I suspect that the waters will be with us for some time in relation to climate change and it is a call on governmental entities and entities on the municipal level to ensure that we focus on proper urban planning so that people, especially vulnerable populations are not living in the most at risk areas of our population. For example you can tell, because our valuation manager did several assessments of previous disasters, tropical storms, hurricane threats, heavy rains in Belize City and we know these areas that will take water in such an event and these are the areas where sadly people live who are most in need in terms of their living conditions so I think that our approach has to be more proactive and more comprehensive.”