Director of Physical Planning and Environment, Mr. Ellis Hazel said the initial implementation phase of the project is being handled under a regional programme which is being coordinated by the Caribbean Environmental Health Institute and funded by (GEF) Global Environmental Facility.

"Whilst residents or citizens are not seeing anything happening on the ground as yet, there is a lot behind the scenes activities taking place; documents are being prepared and systems put in place to ensure that once we would have initiated work on the ground, it runs smoothly. So I would say that that project is pretty much in a planning phase," said Mr. Hazel.

He said some preliminary enhancements are talking place leading up to Cricket World Cup 2007.

"You would see for example a temporary parking space being constructed in a few weeks time to accommodate the (One-Day and Test ) matches in May and June, and that will remain for Cricket World Cup 2007.  The parking space is going to be in the vicinity of the Seventh Day Adventist Church, east of the Horsford's Building Materials Depot. Some other activities, such as the removal of the unsightly advertisement signs on the Kim Collins Highway, would enhance that area," said Hazel. The Public Works Department has made some tremendous improvement within the intersection between the Kim Collins Highway and the Frigate Bay Road.

The senior government official said the entire area will be cleaned up within a few months time. "There will be planting of trees, trees that are compatible with the long term development intent for that area, rather than just a tree planting exercise. Because the area is an aquifer, we have to make sure that in the long term, the consumption of potable water by residents of Basseterre and the surrounding areas, that we are not competing with plants for the water.  So we have to be careful of the type of trees that we plant in that area," Mr. Hazel pointed out.

Asked to comment on concerns that construction activity could have in the area, the Director of Physical Planning and Environment noted that over the years there have been "some suggestions, recommendations - some ludicrous, some crazy, some possible, but with a high and I have to stress, some extremely high degree of capital outlay."

"If you were to put housing on the aquifer, it's like signing you own death warrant. Yes, you can have controls in place and yes, you can have treatment plants, but everything at some point in time becomes a function of maintenance.  Once maintenance goes bad, it means that the risk exposure is much greater and so generally, we would not, and we have not advised that government consider, and we know what the constraints are in East Basseterre as far as residential expansion is concerned, but looking at the bigger picture, the protection and preservation of our main water supply, I think is more important than anything else, any other programme that Government, present or any future government, might want to consider," he explained.

Mr. Hazel said that the proposed National Park, generally fits within the theme of "passive recreation and one of extremely low impact type of activities" and ruled out the construction of an 18-hole championship golf course.

"Not only the water consumption aspect of it, but invariably, golf course maintenance involves huge fertiliser input and so one would want to avoid contamination through whether nitrate loading of the ground water for example. So again, the emphasis is on lower impact activities," he said.

He indicated that the Savannah in Trinidad, is also an aquifer and is a critical urban space, similarly to the lower

Mr. Hazel said the establishment of the National Park is a tremendous opportunity for St. Kitts and Nevis to put in place a greening infrastructure that breaks the monopoly in development between Basseterre and Frigate Bay, "for the esthetics and urban recreation."

He quoted an unidentified colleague who likes to say that Basseterre needs lungs. "Well this is the opportunity to say to give Basseterre the lungs that it needs to have a cooling effect in the hot summer days," said Hazel, who emphasised strongly that any development within the National Park must focus on "low impact activities and passive recreation."

"This is important to show that everything has a link and that the government's planning strategy is not based on any false image. It is based on long-term forecast," said Mr. Hazel, who also pointed to the redevelopment of Warner Park which is nearing the completion.

"What that has done is to take away some of the previously used passive recreational space for the residents of Basseterre and the citizens of the country," said Hazel, who added that kids from the neighbouring schools would go there for light recreation such as heats for the athletic seasons and afternoon leisure.

"With the redevelopment of Warner Park, we no longer would have that facility, so we are transferring those activities from Warner Park to the National Park, where a family can go and play, kids can play football or a group from the Newtown area, from the Central Basseterre area or from Taylor's area, can go there and have games, whether it is cricket, football, or lawn tennis,. These are some of the activities that we will be proposing for the western most part of the proposed National Park," said Mr. Hazel.