Road works coming to St. James South

Roads in the St. James South constituency in dire need of repair as well as drainage issues were the focus of Minister of Transport, Works and Maintenance, Dr. William Duguid, yesterday.

Member of Parliament for the area, Sandra Husbands gave him, along with technocrats in that ministry, a tour of several areas regarded as high priority.

The team visited Husbands, Haynesville, and Prior Park communities.

“We saw some areas where we can definitely improve drainage. We also saw some roads in Tulip Drive, Husbands that we are looking to get resurfaced as quickly as possible. Then there is the Prior Park Road that Minister Husbands talked to us a long time ago about – we are trying to get that done next financial year,” Minister Duguid revealed to members of the media.

“We saw a lot of roads that need some pothole repairs as well. The people of the depot have committed to getting the pothole repair programme started as quickly as possible, to try to get those roads improved.
“It is not every road we can do, we have limited resources, but we are trying to do the best we can with the limited resources that we have. I am satisfied that we can make some headway into making some improvements with a few of the roads in this constituency,” he said.

Minister in the Ministry of Transport, Works and Maintenance, Peter Phillips, highlighted that one of his biggest concerns as they toured the constituency was that of illegal dumping. However, he pointed out that St. James South is not the only culprit.

“I have seen this in other constituencies as well – in some areas of St. Thomas, St Peter… The illegal dumping that we see taking place is in the very watercourse which we have to clean. I want to say not just to people in St. James South but to the rest of Barbados – if you dump in watercourses then you will be the victim of flooding whenever there is heavy rainfall,” he stressed, recalling the November 9, 2019 flashfloods in his St. Lucy constituency.

“We don’t know when we will have another of those systems passing through. So, I want to encourage persons not just in St. James South, but all over Barbados to do your dumping in the proper way… When you have to dump your refrigerators, old furniture and you do so in the bush, remember that it is a watercourse. And it may not be a problem for you at the point in time, but down the road your neighbour, friend or family member could experience problems in that particular area.

“The Drainage Unit definitely will be doing some work over the entire year cleaning culverts, drains, watercourses and so on as part of the routine effort of the Ministry of Transport, Works and Maintenance,” Minister Phillips assured.

The St. James South MP expressed appreciation to the Ministry’s officials for acknowledging the road repairs needed within her constituency. She also agreed with Minister Phillips that indiscriminate dumping must cease immediately.

“What I want to do is to help our residents to understand that maintaining our infrastructure and maintaining a healthy environment is a collaborative effort between government and citizens,” Minister Husbands stressed.

“And so what we are going to do is to bring the community together to talk through the issues pertaining to dumping, and help them to understand why we need to manage the disposal of our garbage differently. So that they can collaborate with MTW in helping to keep the area clean.” (TL)