The Georgetown Mayor and City Council has issued the Critchlow Labour College with a cease and desist order after a businessman, who once operated out of the Woolford Avenue location before it was gutted by fire, started to rebuild sections of the burnt out building.
The cease and desist order was issued on December 16, 2025 by the City Engineer, Colvern Venture, who has made it clear that there was no approval granted for repairs to the building.
The Critchlow Labour College was ordered to cease all works, and remove all unauthorized building work within 30 days.
City Mayor Alfred Mentore told reporters today that no permission was granted to commence works on the building.
“We had no choice because of the unauthorized work that is going on to at least send a cease order and we asked of the council, and the council asked of the engineer to send that cease work order to the secretary of the Critchlow to address the issue of the unauthorized work,” Mayor Mentore said.
The businessman at the centre of the controversy, has claimed that he was leased a section of the property by the Critchlow Labour College. However, Mayor Mentore said any such transaction would be null and void, since the Critchlow Labour College cannot unilaterally lease the property.
He explained that the land where the College is located, was leased to the College by the City of Georgetown.
“The property itself, is the property of the Mayor and City Council. The land is ours, the building is Critchlow because we would have leased that land to Critchlow at the time, and many other properties along there. The contract speaks of if you should sublet, you should contact the Council to allow them to have a fiat or be part of the process. But Critchlow or the Directors did not reach out to us to get permission to deal with that, and so they went ahead and had a lease with the school,” the Mayor explained.
Officials of the Critchlow Labour College have asked the Council to intervene in the matter now that the businessman is reportedly attempting to take control of the section that he reportedly leased.
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