Roads

The failure of successive governments to place on the register all public rights of access to our beaches is a ticking time bomb. There are a lot of unregistered public rights of way in Anguilla. Most public roads in Anguilla have never been declared to be public roads. When you drive on a road to the beach in Anguilla, you never know if it is a public or a private road. The public roads have, in many cases, not been registered as such in the Land Registry. Some of the signs, fences, and gates, that indicate a right of way is private are in fact not true. If you make a search in the Land Registry to discover if a particular road is private or public, you will, in most instances, get no assistance at all. It is as if there exist very few public roads in Anguilla, particularly those leading to the beach. Nothing could be further from the truth. They have just never been registered by the government as public roads. It was not for lack of opportunity or of the necessary tools.

There is a procedure in the Anguilla Roads Act to declare public roads.

There is a procedure in the Registered Land Act to register public roads for the avoidance of doubt.

There is a procedure in the Land Acquisition Act for government to take over private land and make it a public road even against the wishes of the landowner, paying compensation as is usual.

There was a procedure that existed in 1974, under the now-abolished Land Adjudication Act, for government to claim the public roads and accesses. Back then, government could have had all existing public rights of way registered under the land adjudication process that was under way at the time. Instead, they took the cowardly way, and ducked their responsibility. The government was afraid that it would become unpopular if it claimed public roads or footpaths over otherwise private land. So, they decided only to claim the most obvious public roads, not those that might be controversial. Ninety percent of the public rights of way in Anguilla were ignored by the registration process. They were left for some future government to sort out.

That is the situation that the public users of the beaches of Anguilla find themselves in now. We are being increasingly barred from accessing the public beaches. All because of the neglect and cowardice of every government back to the time of Ronald Webster. As a result, unnecessary problems are being stored up for future generations of Anguillians.

I feel bad for the children. They will never be able to enjoy the rights that we once had.