We have by now all heard of the new marina that is to be constructed at Gull Pond, east of Altamer Resort. Some of us have seen the video of the ground-breaking ceremony. It is on YouTube. If you have not seen it before, you can see it by clicking here. You don’t need to look at all 1 hour and 7 minutes of it. It really gets going at 49:51.
This is not the first marina proposal for the Gull Pond. We all remember, several years ago, when the Russians owned Altamer Resort, they proposed to construct a Marina in Gull pond. It is on YouTube as well. If you don’t recall the details of the proposal, you can see it here.
Gull Pond is located just east of Altamer Hotel and west of Cap Juluca Hotel. The pond is cut in two parts by Firefly Lane, a causeway and road across the middle of it, which is used as the staff entrance to Cap Juluca.
As far as I know, nothing has been published indicating what part of Gull Pond will be used. The easternmost part lies just north of Cap Juluca. The western part has always been unused. It is presently about six inches deep and in the dry season, when the water in the pond evaporates, tufts of salt are visible above the water surface. A massive amount of dredging is going to be necessary. We do not know how far below pond level the solid limestone slab of Anguilla’s surface rock lies. To get through that will probably require blasting.
We are not told if the Marina is going to occupy the entire pond, or just a part of it. My best guess is that the plan will only require the westernmost part.
To the best of my knowledge, both government and the developers have been quiet about the plans. No Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the new investors nor any Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) appear to have been published. The Minister assures me that an “EIA was completed”. But there appears to be nothing on the government website, nor in the press, to suggest that Government gave the new developers the criteria for an EIA, together with recommendations on suitable firms competent to do an EIA on such a project and requiring that one of these acceptable firms be retained by the developer to produce the EIA. These are minimum requirements for a genuine EIA. Indeed, all details about any EIA appear secret.
EIAs are not intended to be just another bureaucratic hurdle for investors to jump. An EIA is an essential for achieving sustainability through the identification and assessment of environmental, social, and economic impacts. Its purpose is to inform decision makers prior to the use of resources and commitments being made. An EIA is required where a proposed project could result in significant adverse environmental effects for the stakeholders, including neighbours, and the community at large. It allows companies and government decision makers to examine the effects that the proposed project may have on the environment and determine if the project is of real public interest.
More to the point, since the year 2001 EIAs are compulsory in Anguilla. Anguilla has signed up to an Environmental Charter with the British Government. It commits us, among other things, to ensure that EIAs are undertaken before approving major projects. The Charter was signed on 26 September 2001 by Baroness Amos for the UK and Chief Minister Osborne Fleming for Anguilla. It is published online and can be read by clicking here. I demand to see the EIA for this project.
I would also love to see this project’s business plan. What purpose do they claim a high-end yacht marina would serve in Anguilla? Why would a mega-yacht owner want to visit, far less stay in, a marina in Anguilla? Given the tiny size of Anguilla, would we have the resources to service such a facility?
Why would a mega-yacht owner want to exchange Monte Carlo or Gustavia for Anguilla? We are unlikely to offer the services of a ship’s chandlery, far less the engineering and maintenance staff found in a mega-yacht marina in Europe or the USA.
Anguilla is hurricane prone. Yachts, in the confined space of a concrete marina demonstrated in the promotional video, do not survive hurricanes. No sensible yacht owner is going to leave their multimillion-dollar yacht in such a marina for a hurricane to come and sink it. Besides, marine insurance policies do not generally permit a valuable yacht to remain in hurricane-prone waters during the hurricane season, June to November.
Their insurance policies alone could force all the mega-yachts to leave Anguillian waters for at least six months of the year. A marina in Anguilla will likely be deserted for six months every year. The condo-owners may be gone too. The only time we might expect yachts would be here is over Christmas and New Year’s. We see it happen in Antigua, the BVI, and St Maarten/St Martin every year. How does this make business sense?
Mega-yachts have their own tenders and helicopters. There is no need for such a yacht to go into a marina here and spend money when they can remain offshore anchored as they currently do. They would not even need to buy the expensive fuel a marina in Anguilla would sell when they can sail to nearby St Maarten or Tortola where marine fuel is much cheaper.
Marinas can cause heavy pollution to the land and the sea, and we already know how fragile the Anguillian marine ecosystem is.
Each year we see the numbers of
yachts that currently visit Anguilla. They only come at Christmas time and
remain offshore. Will having an expensive mega-yacht marina magically make more
yachts come to visit? Even nearby St Barths only has an increased number of
yachts visiting for Christmas and New Years. After that, the yachts leave. And in
many ways St Barths, given the economies of scale, is more “high end” than
Anguilla could ever be. If they desert St Barths for half the year, they will certainly desert Anguilla too.
Anguilla is surrounded by other islands with marinas, and not even those marinas are filled. We can think of the BVI, St Martin/Maarten, St Kitts, and Antigua. Even in Antigua, with its famous and historic English Harbour, its marina is not filled all year round. Anguilla will face fierce competition.
It would be interesting to see how the Altamer marina proposal and business plan treat these issues. I am assuming that government in doing its due diligence had these matters thoroughly investigated.
However, all of this causes me to have my doubts about the bona fides of this project because much of the evidence points to this not really being about a marina - it appears to be a project familiar to us in the Caribbean. Its sole purpose may be about no more than real estate speculation. The developers will offer to sell from the drawings high-end condominiums with the promise of an attached mega-yacht marina and casino, acting as the hooks for wealthy investors. We saw that in the abortive condominium/marina Road Bay Pond Marina of 2020.
Initially, my only evidence for concluding that the Gull Pond Marina proposal was really a speculative condominium project was the involvement of Mr George Fraser, Mr Lars Gunnar Odhe, and Mr David Mizrahi of SF Antillean Inc. These individuals were the principals behind the abortive condominium/marina Road Bay Pond Marina of 2020. George Fraser and David Mizrahi signed the “Definitive Agreement” for the Road Bay Marina. On 18 September 2020, I published an essay setting out my reasons for believing that the Road Pond project was not a genuine marina proposal.
All doubts about the Gull Pond marina were validated by an article in the 8 January 2024 issue of the Anguillian Newspaper. This quotes Mr Fraser as saying, “Not long ago we were invited by the previous administration to bid for the development of a marina in Sandy Ground.… but everyone knows that did not come to fruition. I did reach out to Dr Webster when his administration came into office, and I told him that we were determined to stay in Anguilla to develop a marina here. About one year ago we signed an MOU with Altamer, and today we are here breaking the ground for this marina.”
I would like to know, was there a real Environmental Impact Assessment ever insisted on by government for this project proposal?
Are the new investors buying or leasing the pond and the land around it on which they will construct any casino and high-end apartments?
Was an Aliens Landholding Licence issued? What were the terms of the Licence?
Are we ever going to see the conditions under which this group have been permitted to take over this pond?
Have the Anguilla National Trust and other local, regional, and international experts been invited to advise on the conditions we should insist on for such a project?
Can we rely on the political party presently in opposition, to hold government’s feet to the fire over this project and its missing EIA? After all they were the ones who, in the first place, welcomed this group to Anguilla to promote the Road Bay Marina just a few short years ago.
All these questions remain unanswered.
