64

WILL FOLLOW PEOPLE'S WISH

Panmu re Island today

Discuss Panmure Island

67 Heather Moore

p Tourism and Environ- ment Minister Gilbert Cle- ments and representatives from his department held a meeting Tuesday night at the Gaspereaux Hall to discuss the development of.the Pan-

mure Island Provincial Park. Mr. Clements explained

to the people present that the meeting was to discuss changes or improvements the people from the Pan- mure Island area wanted, it there were any. V

”Parks are used by Is- landers as well astourists,” he explained, “and we have us think ahead about what we can provide in our parks and the heritage we’ll leave behind."

The Easterr’i

Some of the proposals pre- sented for the parks were; better bath houses, seper- ate roads for campers and day use, board walks across the sand dunes, kitchen shel— ters, campground office,and trailer units.

“If the people don’t want any changes in the park, then we’ll pull up stakes \and move out,” Mr. Clem— ents announced.

Concerning any future ex- pansion of the park, Mr. Clements was questioned as to whether the land owners had any choice if'they want- ed to sell or not, if the government wanted the land.

“We can’t force anybody to sell their land,” he re- plied, “If there is some land in the area that we think

*—

The lively Ono VOL. 12 NO. 24 WEDNESDAY JUNE 4, 1975

we might use in the future, we can only approach the land owner and make an offer but if he refuses then we can only wait until the land becomes available and then make an effort to pur— chase it. We won’t force any- body to sell.”

Mr. Clements continuedto explain that if a person owns land near the park area and they wish to build a home or cottage on that piece of land there will be no spec- ial restrictions on the build— ing permit.

According to a report of

the Department of Environ-

ment and Tourism last years visitors to Panmure Island

totalled 62,738 and the cost of the proposed improve—

ments is approximately

$10,000;

Concerning sand removal from the beaches, Mr. Clem— ents said that there are peop- 1e who want the sand left on the beaches and then there are people who make a liv- ing by hauling sand butthere' is a method of organized sand removal.

However, he pointed out that if a landowner wants to haul sand from his own beach property then the gov- ernment can’t prevent him from doing so.

A vote taken at the meet— ing resulted in the majority of the people wanting to go ahead with this year’s pro— posal of making improve- ments for the park.

Mr. Clements commented that his main concern this year is parking facilities for the day use visitors and the proposed plan ’will pre-

vent cars from parking on

the main highway along the Island causeway. “If the parking area and changing houses were on one side

.of the causeway,” he said,

“this would prevent people from crossing the highway and help to cut accidents but crosswalks across the highway could be made for visitors wishing to cross to use the St. Mary’s Bay beach."

Source: Eastern Graphic newspaper, J me 4, 1975