The initial investigation by the police and other relevant state authorities suggests that the fire that destroyed the Calliaqua Police Station on March 13 was “not nefarious”.
Minister of National Security St. Clair Leacock said the investigation has pointed to a malfunctioning piece of equipment on the ground floor of the two-story building as the cause of the blaze.
He, however, stopped short of disclosing the cause, saying, “… I have a formal report from the police as the cause of fire and it is not nefarious as some people are speculating,” he said on Boom FM on Tuesday.
“It started somewhere downstairs, possibly with a malfunctioned piece of item. It’s not deliberate, and the police didn’t run out — and set the place afire and leave it alone,” Leacock said as he chuckled.
“That’s not the case, your mischievous self,” he said, referring to the radio host. “But the thing is, the building was rotten. It’s pitch pine board inside. So once you got a fire going there–.”
Asked if the fire was electric, Leacock said, “It appears so — from a malfunction. … I have to be limited in the detail I give as to the cause of the fire at this time.
“Even though the power company has given their report, the police have given theirs, and the electrical inspector has given those, we are still doing the evaluation with a fine-teeth comb, so we have to be absolutely sure that we didn’t overlook any part of the investigation.”
The Calliaqua Police Station had needed urgent repair.
With the building destroyed by fire, police officers are now being housed at the Calliaqua Town Hall, located along the same street in the south coast town.
The national security minister said he did not think that the new police station would be rebuilt at the same spot along the main road.
“Actually, there was an area that we had been looking a little further up the Glen Road there, below one of those food houses, which has a good piece of land there,” Leacock said.
“We were going to build a police station there in any case,” he said.
The minister said the government is considering leaving the police station in the town hall building and constructing a new town hall where the police station was going to be built.
“…but that depends on engineering, architects and other consultations. But whatever it is, they will be in far better condition than they were at the existing [police station],” he said, referring to the police officers.
He agreed with the host of the show that the land where the police station was located is “prime” property.
“It is prime, prime, but it’s still government’s property,” Leacock said.
He said that if it was left to the project officer in his ministry, the shell of the burnt-out police station would have been demolished within another week or two.
“… and she may well be right, but you have to look at the kitty and see how much money is in there and decide whether the demolition funds for the Calliaqua Police Station at this time is the best spent monies as against spending the same money for some other improvement or upgrade of some other thing,” the minister said.
He agreed that the burnt-out building is unsightly but said that the relevant agencies had done “a fantastic job” of cleaning it out after the blaze.
