When heavy-duty equipment moved onto the beach outside Heron Bay, the exclusive property of British billionaire J.C. Bamford, and started placing the boulders on the beach, residents went on the alert.
In response, the Coastal Zone Management Unit will be sending an engineering team to the beach this morning to survey the work while Chief Town Planner Mark Cummins disclosed that an investigation would be carried out.
Barbadians raised the issue on a radio call-in programme yesterday, comparing the situation at Heron Bay - the mansion at which United States President Bill Clinton stayed in 1997 - with the recent dispute over the erection of a wall at Mullins Beach, St. Peter. That wall was torn down after public protests.
Yesterday, Porters residents complained that the boulders would inhibit access to the beach and a beach management expert told the Daily Nation there were no known "coastal dynamics" that would require the presence of the boulders since some were already buried in the sand protecting the property.
One resident and several visitors who left their blankets and beach chairs to watch, wondered how it would affect their movements across the sand.
Workmen from C.O. Williams Construction, the company undertaking the job, were able to offer no other explanation than that they were contracted to place the boulders behind the fence. One workman said he believed the rocks were being placed there to form "a kind of guard wall to stop the mould from coming away".
A source close to the coastal unit said the matter was one for the Town Planning Department since the department considered the erection of boulders as "development", which required their permission. Similarly, only the Chief Town Planner can issue a stop notice. The source said the unit had been monitoring the situation along the West Coast for some time, and that photographs and reports had been sent to Town Planning.