Antigua and Barbuda has a policy — never legislated, never debated, never put to the public — that allows parliamentarians to buy Crown land at deeply discounted "concessionary rates." It has been in place for decades. And it extends into Nelson's Dockyard National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
The only reason any of us know about it is because a government lost an election.
Nobody voted for this. No law authorises it.
What the Court Record Shows
In 2010, the Eastern Caribbean Court of Appeal published its judgment in Browne v. Attorney General & National Parks Authority. The case involved three acres of Crown land inside Nelson's Dockyard National Park — said to be between the Slipway marina and Galleon Beach — sold for $25,000 per acre.
The buyer did nothing wrong. The court said so. He paid the asking price through every official channel and the Court of Appeal ruled unanimously in his favour. The problem is the policy behind the sale.
The concessionary-rate policy had been running for "upwards of twenty-five years."
The Permanent Secretary for Lands testified that selling park land was "not an unusual event."
In the entire history of the National Parks Act, there had been no written consultation with the NPA before any park-land sale. Not once.
The NPA's own chairman — described by the court as "a high-ranking member of the Antigua Labour Party" — personally identified the site and facilitated the transaction. Other board members knew and raised no objection.
The case surfaced only because the ALP lost the 2004 election. A new government reconstituted the NPA board and sued to reverse the sale. The Court of Appeal noted that the new government itself kept selling park land after taking office and never challenged other buyers. The suit was political, not principled.
Think about what that means. The ALP has held power for a combined 38 of the last 50 years. How many Crown parcels inside the National Park were sold to parliamentarians at concessionary rates during those decades?
We don't know. Nobody has looked.
The Numbers
per acre
(court record, 2004)
per acre
(Savills, Luxury Locations, Blue Palm — 2025)
One-acre plots at Galleon Beach — the same stretch identified in the court judgment — are listed today by Savills, Luxury Locations, and Blue Palm Real Estate at USD $1.6 million to $2 million per acre. Raw land, no structures.
This is public land — inside a protected National Park, now a UNESCO World Heritage Site — transferred to political insiders at a fraction of its value.
Heritage land is not a political benefit. It belongs to the people of Antigua and Barbuda.
What I Am Calling For
- 01 Give the National Parks Act teeth. The Act requires the Crown to consult the NPA before dealing with park land but specifies no consequence for failure. The Court of Appeal flagged this gap in 2010. Fifteen years later, it's still open. Close it.
- 02 A public register of Crown land transfers inside the Park. Who bought what, when, and for how much. The records exist at the Land Registry. Make them public.
- 03 End the concessionary land policy inside National Parks and UNESCO World Heritage Sites. Heritage land is not a perk of office.
Nelson's Dockyard was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2016 for its "outstanding universal value." That value doesn't belong to any party, any politician, or any cabinet. It belongs to every Antiguan and Barbudan — and to the generations yet to come.
It's time we protected it like we mean it.
Heritage land is not
a political benefit.
