Min­is­ter of Plan­ning and De­vel­op­ment Pen­ne­lope Beck­les- Robin­son says new tax in­cen­tives will soon be rolled out in an at­tempt to pro­tect Trinidad and To­ba­go's her­itage sites.

She was speak­ing at the Na­tion­al Trust's Her­itage List­ing Cer­e­mo­ny on Wednes­day where 16 new her­itage sites were named. Beck­les-Robin­son said these mea­sures would help sus­tain her­itage restora­tion in T&T.

“The up­com­ing her­itage tax al­lowance pro­gramme, [is]an in­cen­tive cre­at­ed to en­cour­age cor­po­rate sup­port of her­itage preser­va­tion projects. I hope this first step will spark Trinidad and To­ba­go's her­itage econ­o­my.”

Beck­les-Robin­son stat­ed that these her­itage sites can open new doors and op­por­tu­ni­ties for T&T, and if done cor­rect­ly, can be­come a self-sus­tain­ing in­dus­try.

She said, “The so­cial and eco­nom­ic im­pli­ca­tions of a her­itage econ­o­my are bound­less with enor­mous po­ten­tial for job cre­ation, tourism de­vel­op­ment and in­vest­ment cli­mate en­hance­ment. Spillover ef­fects can al­so be felt in sci­ence, ed­u­ca­tion and tech­nol­o­gy and can pro­mote so­cial co­he­sion in­to cul­tur­al di­a­logue and ex­change in our eth­ni­cal­ly di­verse na­tion.”

Ac­cord­ing to the min­is­ter, 59 sites have been list­ed to be legal­ly pro­tect­ed by the state and as time pass­es, they hope to in­crease that num­ber in an ef­fort to en­sure T&T's her­itage is safe­guard­ed for fu­ture gen­er­a­tions.

Al­so present at the event, was Port of Spain May­or, Joel Mar­tinez who com­mend­ed the Na­tion­al Trust for the work they have done.

“Port of Spain has a lot of his­tor­i­cal build­ings and a lot of list­ings from the na­tion­al trust...When we trav­el, we hear did you vis­it this, did you see that...and that’s the thing about it, we as­so­ciate places around the world with their his­tor­i­cal build­ings and their beau­ti­ful places. I’m proud and hap­py that Ms. Mc­Dow­ell and the Na­tion­al Trust can and will and con­tin­ue to do things like this to al­low us to have that sense of ap­pre­ci­a­tion for what we have.”

He al­so urged cit­i­zens to fos­ter a sense of ap­pre­ci­a­tion for the cul­ture that is present in T&T, echo­ing the min­is­ter’s sen­ti­ments.

“It is now up to us as cit­i­zens of Trinidad and To­ba­go, the cit­i­zens of Port of Spain... to as a cit­i­zen of Trinidad and To­ba­go to do some­thing about it to en­sure that it re­mains pre­served for us to ap­pre­ci­ate it, not just for our gen­er­a­tion but for many more gen­er­a­tions to come.”

Chair­man of the Na­tion­al Trust of Trinidad and To­ba­go, Mar­garet Mc­Dow­ell re­vealed that there were over 400 sites recog­nised by the trust, where “some are nat­ur­al and some are built.”

Ac­cord­ing to Mc­Dow­ell, the trust looks “for build­ings and prop­er­ties of all sorts that are sym­bols of the her­itage of our coun­try, all kinds of her­itage.” These prop­er­ties then go through a se­ries of steps, such as the land­marks com­mit­tee, then le­gal, then to coun­cil­lors be­fore head­ing to the Min­is­ter's desk.

She al­so re­vealed that each site is giv­en a grade which de­notes the lev­el of re­stric­tions per­sons may have when restor­ing the prop­er­ties. Mc­Dow­ell said this process re­quires “con­tin­u­ous main­te­nance, con­tin­u­ous sup­port.”

New­ly en­list­ed Her­itage Sites:

Pres­i­dent's House

Trinidad Gov­ern­ment Rail­way Build­ing

St. James Po­lice Bar­racks

Our La­dy of Montser­rat R.C Church

Wood­ford Square

Carnegie Free Li­brary

Ca­bil­do Build­ing

George Brown House

Knowsley

Lopinot House

Naipaul House

Pel­i­can Is­land

Lena­gan Is­land

Cale­do­nia Is­land

Craig Is­land

Rock Is­land