Speaking at a press conference on Tuesday (10), representatives from the Concerned Citizens Group, the West Bay Action Committee, Save Cayman and the Coalition to Keep Bodden Town Dump Free circulated correspondence between the groups, the premier and the Foreign & Commonwealth office (FCO) to the media in attendance.

In Premier Hon. McKeeva Bush’s response to the pleas from campaigners seeking to preserve the West Bay Road to meet him to discuss the planned deal with the Dart Group he said:

“The views and reasons for objecting to the road closure is a repetition of what you and the destructive groups you represent have previously stated and misrepresented on multiple occasions, and therefore in light of other national priorities and urgent community needs across these three islands, the meeting that you have requested will come after other Government business, based on my availability. As I announced, I will hold a Public Meeting again as is my duty, to continue giving factual information to the people who elected me.”

In the response to the Chairman of the Concerned Citizens Group, Alice Mae Coe’s copy letter originally sent to Governor Duncan Taylor, about the same matter, the FCO said:

“While I understand your wish to have your concerns investigated by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, this is a matter which you should take up with the Cayman Islands Government, as responsibility for development and infrastructure is a devolved issue under the Cayman Islands Constitution. I note that a copy of the petition against the closure of a portion of the West Bay Road that you coordinated was forwarded to the Premier of the Cayman Islands. I would encourage you to continue to raise your concerns about this issue directly with the Premier.”

Even though an agreement has been signed between government, Dart and the NRA to begin work on the Esterley Tibbetts Highway into West Bay, which needs to be completed before the more than 4,000 feet of the original road can be closed, Coe said that there were thousands of people ready to stand up and stop the closure if need be as her group has collected over 4,000 signatures on the petition against the road closure, “more than 2,300 of which were registered voters.”

“We have been working for the greater part of a year to try and get government to listen to our concerns about the closure of the West Bay Road, but our concerns continue to fall on deaf ears,” Coe said. “Our campaign will continue and I am still hopeful that the premier will listen and try to understand what the objections are about and why the campaign is continuing.”

She rejected the premier’s comment that her group was “destructive”.

“I have written back to the premier and accused him of failing to deliver good governance,” she said.

Mervin Smith, representing Save Cayman, said the premier was an elected politician and therefore had an obligation to listen to both sides and not just that of the developer. “When the ForCayman Alliance with Dart was announced,” he said, “there had been no previous discussion in public about whether this was something the people supported or not. Government simply announced the road was going to close.”

Smith added he was not as hopeful of a positive response as Coe and said he did not believe that it was likely the premier would “see things our way, but the campaign will continue. If it came to it we are prepared to occupy the road. We will not allow this to happen.”

Smith also accused government of trying to sell out Caymanians with an insulting deal.

A Public Meeting was also announced for Thursday 12^th April  at 7:30 p.m. at the open lot across from Foster’s Republix Supermarket, West Bay to discuss: “Let’s Preserve The West Bay Road & Barkers Beach And National Park/No Bodden Town Dump”.