A significant majority of
respondents to last week’s caycompass.com online poll believe the
infrastructure project the Cayman Islands needs most is a new landfill site.
Of the 515 respondents, 274 of them
- 53.2 per cent - thought a new landfill should be at the top of the
government’s agenda.
“To have tourists taking the bypass
from the airport to Seven Mile Beach and drive past and see and smell the dump
is a total embarrassment that makes the island look bad,” commented one person.
“It must be changed.”
“I would say we need all of them
(except maybe the deep water channel), but Mount Trashmore is poisoning our
environment,” said another respondent. “We need to do something about that
urgently.”
“Maybe not a new site, but a new
process to destroy the garbage and hopefully create cheaper energy as a
by-product,” said someone else.
“We don’t need a new landfill site,
but we do need our current landfill fixed,” commented another person. “The
location should remain the same, but the systems and processes improved.”
“Take it to East End already,” said
someone else.
The next largest segment of
respondents - 94 people or 18.3 per cent - didn’t think Cayman needed any of
the four infrastructure projects listed.
“What we need is a decent public
dock on Seven Mile Beach for those boaters who don’t live on the North Sound,”
said one person.
“We can’t afford it,” said someone
else.
Another 87 people - 16.9 per cent -
thought a longer runway at the airport was the most needed infrastructure
project.
“This would allow us to accommodate
bigger planes to land more tourism hopefully,” said one person.
“There is an entire market in
Europe and points further east that we cannot easily reach and other countries
in the region benefit from because we cannot handle the jets that fly in,” said
someone else. “We need that extension and we need it now so we can address the
stay-over tourism market.”
“An easy project to do is just
complete the extension to the airport runway,” said another respondent. “Years
ago the main road was moved to extend the existing runway. The actual extension
never took place, although the main road did move. The only expense of doing it
should be the cost of completing the extension.”
Forty-five people - 8.7 per cent -
thought a new cargo dock in East End was the most important infrastructure
project, and 15 people - 2.9 per cent - thought a deep water channel in the
North Sound was tops on the list.
“A deep water port for cruise and
cargo ships,” said one person.
Although it wasn’t one of the
choices, several people commented “all of the above” to the question. One person wrote “we definitely don’t need a
deep water channel in the North Sound”. Someone else commented that the infrastructure
project Cayman needed most was a new cruise ship berthing dock.
Next week’s poll question:
Do you think someone is justified in shooting a person who has
broken into their home?