After being discussed in the editorial two weeks before, the proposed national development plan was covered in several articles in the 24 April 1975 edition of The Caymanian Compass.
The main front-page story was about how residents of Cayman Brac and planners “hammered out new draft development guidelines” after “hours of discussion, a demonstration, and a petition to the governor” warning the plan would lead to “economic disaster” for Brackers. Highlighted were remarks by audience member Capt. E. Hurlstone, who told the planners, “Gentlemen, I would ask you to take the next plane out”, and specifically telling a Caymanian planner, “I would suggest you take another job.”
A second story was about the Legislative Assembly scheduling an “emergency session” on whether the public consultation period for the plan should be extended to three months. A private member’s motion by James Bodden said 30 days “is too short a time for the public to intelligently deal” with the plan.
Another story looked at a Bodden Town meeting on the plan. Noting the session ended on a “stormy note”, the article said the planning authority chairman “packed up in the middle of a question from the floor, after remarking that people seemed to think the meeting was a waste of time”. This came after attendee Anthony Eden said if the planners had met with the public before preparing the document, to canvass opinions, so much time might not have been wasted.
In other news, with Grand Cayman “in the midst of a severe water shortage”, the Cayman Water Company was delivering to cisterns. The lack of rainfall over the previous months had led to cisterns either being dry or very low.
In the editorial, about government’s agricultural policy, the newspaper was encouraged that land and water surveys show Cayman can “produce crops economically here” and “in due course” would be able to “replace imported products with our own”. Once again, the issues from 50 years ago seem very relevant to present-day ones.
