 Good day and welcome to interview a production of the government information service. I am your host for today Jacques Kingston Compton with me today is project manager of the OECS Regional Tourism Competitiveness Project or O-R-T-C-P Dr. Lorraine Nicholas and Dr. Nicholas is in our studios today to speak on various activities and projects aimed at improving parts of castries Now Dr. Nicholas will briefly tackle all these programs as much as we can one at a time Let's start with the William Peter Boulevard What are the plans for the Boulevard and what recent activities has the project undertaken towards achieving these improvements? Thank you, Mr. Compton for having me It's always a pleasure to be here at the GIS to share some insight with the public on the work of the O-R-T-C-P The William Peter Boulevard as you know is a central part of the castries business district It is a location that attracts a significant amount of pedestrian traffic It is easy to find it is easy to navigate and it is also in close proximity To one of our major cruise spots, which is at a plus carnage So the fundamental aim is to really make the the William Peter Boulevard a more pedestrian friendly space a space that is more conducive to relaxation a Space that is more conducive to Hustle-free shopping so a place where locals and visitors can go and sit and enjoy local cultural Entertainment as well as dine have a cup of coffee the underlying aim is to bring more money Into the economy so that we can benefit more from the tourism sector so what what exactly are would the improvements entail aside from Attracting more businesses as you say to the area what physical sort of improvements would you would be undertaken so Currently we are at the stage of preparing the option designs for the Boulevard So we have engaged in the services of a consultant firm a Barbadian based firm With also some local experts. So we have an engineer on the team agent people's a St. Inclusion we have an architect Sean Compton We also have a social and economic specialist because we are not only focusing on the Infrastructural upgrades, but also looking at the economic and the social implications So the consultants who were engaged in March of this year have now completed the first phase Which is the diagnostic assessment and this assessment entailed Basically assessing the quality of the urban space so looking at the architectural features the topographic features Basically looking at the competitive positioning of the Boulevard relative to other spaces in castries They also did an inventory of the buildings and the businesses in the Boulevard area We also did surveys of various groups of persons who use the Boulevard sort of vendors the taxi operators The business persons and general pedestrians who use the Boulevard and these surveys in addition to giving us demographic Information also gave us information about the socio-economic profile of persons who use the site the hours of use or those persons felt about the Boulevard and we have also Conducted a series of consultations with vendors taxi operators business persons in the Boulevard to acquire Insight on how they envisage this improved Boulevard to look So I am saying this mr. Compton to say that we are not at a stage where we already know what the improvements will be We are at a stage where we are gathering information from the public so that their vision Their aspirations and desires for the improvement of the Boulevard would be considered some of the other things we considered are The traffic flow the parking many people tell you well if you are going to pedestrianize the Boulevard What would happen to parking because parking is so limited in castries already? so these are the some of the things that we are now discussing that we are now assessing and We have completed this assessment Okay, and now I also understand that you have another set of public consultation schedule for August 7 in castries and August 8 in v4 what will be discussed during those consultations? Yes, so this would be sort of the third set of consultations and we are at a stage now now that the consultants Have compiled all of this information they have guarded Regarding the focus group meetings the inventory of the businesses the assessments of the actual physical site They have now gone back and sat and put together the conceptual designs for what the Boulevard will look like Now they have put together four option designs We could have asked the consultant to just give us one design based on what was discussed and all of the inside They have acquired but we thought that it would be more democratic if we did four option designs for pedestrianization Now we speak of pedestrianization I think it is very important to basically say what this is about it essentially means Restricted vehicular traffic as I said earlier we want the Boulevard to be more pedestrian friendly a place where pedestrians can To hassle free shopping without having to worry about vehicles going up and down and maybe even knocking them so the idea really is To pedestrian the pedestrianize the bouvard which means restrict vehicular traffic So we have four option designs one option would obviously be full Pedestrianization so in that case there would be no vehicles Allowed to move within the Boulevard. There are other options Perhaps it could be now we know the Boulevard has to wait traffic It could be a scenario where you only have one way traffic going up and not to wait traffic as currently obtains It could be pedestrianization at various hours of the day early in the morning on a weekend, etc so we are going to Present four options to the public at those consultations on the seventh and the eighth and allow them to discuss it and Select the one that they think is the best out of the four Okay. Thank you very much for that. We're due for our first break This is interview a production of the government information service will be right back after this One of the eight university recognized rights of the consumer is the right to be heard This means that every consumer who is dissatisfied with a good of service Has the right to lodge a complaint to the provider of that good or that service This should be the first point of lodging a complaint and show that the receipt as proof of the transaction is available Welcome back to interview a production of the government information service again I am here with OECS regional tourism competitiveness project manager dr. Lorraine Nicholas Now we were speaking about the improvements to William Peter Boulevard and castries and V4 and all that I want you to Briefly talk about the facade improvement program Recently your project hired a grants manager to oversee the facade improvement grants program for certain parts of castries So could you tell me what this facade program entails? Yes, so I have looked at a number of shows like DBS's Street Vibes where person talk about the unsightly Appeal or lack there of of the facades or the storefronts in castries and This project as you know is a tourism project, but it is also targeting our locals We want the city of castries to be more aesthetically attractive and appealing to locals first and then to our visitors because Currently increasingly every year. We have hundreds of thousands of cruise ship passengers for whom castries is the first point of entry However a significant majority of those visitors do not venture into castries Some of them say it is because it is navigate It is difficult to navigate to get across from the port area to the downtown area because of the traffic in that area Some say because it doesn't look appealing there is nothing of interest to do see or buy And so the idea is to upgrade the facade or the storefronts in castries in the castries business district To make them more aesthetically attractive and to do so under the ORT CP We will be the government of st. Lucia Given financial incentives to the property owners So this would be in the form of matching grants 50-50 the idea is that a business would put some of the funds and the government would put the other half of the financing Ranging up to ten thousand US dollars and one might ask This might say why why doesn't the government give all of the money? Well, it is a case where you would not want This to be there to be interest simply because it is free money We can see it as free money and so they jump on board You want there to be a level of ownership that person see that there is value in doing this it is their building It is their property. This is what is being developed and the government is contributing to it. So Some of the objectives of this project is to enhance the viability the economic viability of the businesses By enhancing their attractiveness and their appeal in addition to that We are also looking to restore and conserve the historical value of some of the buildings in castries We know that many of the buildings have a lot of historical value and we want to maintain and retain this historical integrity So this is the objective of the program there's some projects that are eligible some that are not so we are looking at very Moderate upgrades so we would not be doing major Infrastructural or structural upgrades. So if a building needs painting deep cleaning Installation of the signs if there needs to be a removal of any barriers to access ability So that persons of all abilities persons who have physical disabilities can access the site This would be this would be done looking at the installation of critters the installation of awnings Exterior lighting to make it a little bit more aesthetically pleasing So these are just some of the things that we would be doing under the facade improvement program The boulevard consultants are mr. Sean Compton the architect on the team would be doing the designs For the facade improvements But it is not a design where every building in the in the area would look exactly the same Because all the buildings have their branding So digicel has its red and white coats has its colors kosher bank has its colors And so it is just ensuring that we have a level of unit not uniformity, but harmonization and Coordination so that maybe all of the signs may be put in a certain way Maybe the utilities may be erected in a certain way just to enhance the general appeal of the area And when you expect to launch the program So we will be launching the program tentatively on August the 21st I believe we were still confirming the dates with the minister But this is the date we're looking at the third week in August to really launch the program as you said mr. Compton We have hired a grants manager who's very enthusiastic and ready to start the program has already started Doing some groundwork with the businesses basically sensitizing them about the product about this program Okay, and we are coming to the end of our program Is there anything else that you want to briefly speak about before we go off there? Well, I want to say as well that one of the other initiatives we have ongoing in castries is the rehabilitation of the sidewalks The sidewalks are a major issue the conditions of the sidewalks So we have consultants who are just about finalizing the designs for the sidewalks and the streets targeted We're looking at Jeremy Street Bridge Street Labry Street Pania Street seven streets the John Compton Highway starting from low select into Jeremy Street Bridge Street, did I say that Brazil Street as well make wood Street? so these are the streets that we have done the designs for the sidewalks and In addition to that I would like to end by encouraging this inclusion public to really come out to the Consultations that we have a range for next week Wednesday and next week Thursday Thursday will be in view fort at the Bainfield Comprehensive Secondary School and Wednesday on the fifth floor of the finance Administrative Center in point seraphine castries right next to the fisheries complex it is an opportunity to give their views and we would like as many views as possible and In addition to that we also intend to put it online so that persons have an opportunity They can't make it to the consultations To view them online and to give their feedback as well. Well, dr. Nicholas I want to thank you very much for coming in up coming on our show and Discussing with us the future of castries as well as view fort This is interview a production of the government information service. I'm your host Jackingson Compton Thank you very much for watching. Please stay tuned to more programming on this station