The government is aggressively pursuing its housing project, not only in New Providence but in the Family Islands as well.

On a recent trip to Grand Bahama, Minister of Housing Kenred Dorsett told The Bahama Journal that the housing project cannot be “Nassau-centric.”

“There is an interest to provide homes on Grand Bahama,” he said.

“What we want to do is further analyse where people want to live. What the people in McLeans Town [Grand Bahama] are telling me is that even if it’s a smaller subdivision they want to be able to remain in the settlement that they were born and raised in and not go to the city or another area so what we’re doing is really trying to listen to the people.”

And the minister said the government is going to adopt that approach in all of the islands.

“When I was in North Abaco people had advised me that they were concerned that they had to move away from the settlements they were accustomed to and move away,” Minister Dorsett said.

“Most of them would prefer to stay close to home where all their cousins and family exist. So, what we now have to determine as a government is whether we are going to continue to build these 400-lot subdivisions on specific islands which comes at a significant capital cost to the people or whether we are going to provide smaller lots on a main road where it’s easier to tie into utilities and other infrastructure.”

He added, however, that pre-planning work is continuing in New Providence.

“What we are doing right now is completing all the infrastructure works in subdivisions that the former administration did not do,” the housing minister said.

“That should be completed by the end of this year. In the next 30 days, we should complete the funding mechanism for the government’s housing programme as we are in continuous negations with the National Insurance Board in that regard. Once that’s done we should be able to move by the first quarter of next year to aggressively pursue this project.”