Political commentator and clergyman Claude Skelton Cline has raised concerns about the BVI becoming a dumping ground for derelict vehicles, waste, and substandard imports.
Appearing on his Honestly Speaking radio programme, the talk show host urged residents to take responsibility for their environment and stop normalising uncleanliness. “This is our home,” Skelton Cline stated. “How have we normalised such dirtiness? How is it that we think it is normal and cute?” Skelton Cline criticised the state of the territory’s waterfronts, which he said have been turned into parking lots for derelict vehicles, boats, and garbage. “Too much of our waterfront space is underdeveloped, and that which is not developed, what do we do? We turn them into parking garages, derelict dead vehicles, boats, garbage dumps, you name it,” he argued.
Those right-hand drive vehicles
The commentator also took issue with the importation of ageing, right-hand drive vehicles, which he said do not meet proper emission standards and quickly become abandoned along the roadsides. “We are allowing these things in the Virgin Islands, further contaminating our airspace. We are dying from all kinds of cancers, and we don’t know where it is coming from,” he explained.