– call on authorities to look into drainage, state of roads in their community

RESIDENTS of ‘C’ Field Sophia are calling on the relevant authorities to look into the deplorable state of their streets and drainage within their section of the community.
The residents, who are calling for better roads, drainage and streets lights, say many have been robbed in the streets in ‘C’ Field at nights and coupled with that, their yards flood regularly because of poor drainage.

“Me and two other girls were robbed couple nights ago right on the corner. We was just liming on the corner and them boys just pull up on we just like duh,” said resident Denzel Skinner.

Many of the cross streets in ‘C’ Field Sophia are so bad, that taxi drivers refuse to drive through them. On some occasions, residents are robbed as they make their way from the drop-off point to their homes.

“You frighten, many times you would want to go out on the corner to lime, but you does be afraid to,” explained Sherwin Halley, whose sister and brother-in-law were robbed at gunpoint while they were standing at the corner waiting on a taxi, just a few doors away from their residence.

“It happen about two months back, right at the corner. Is because the street them don’t have no light. A lot of times when I go out to the back dam, I does call taxis to come in and they say they not coming in the street, reach them on the road, ” said Roxanne Holder.
She also complained bitterly about the state of her yard which is regularly flooded because of poor drainage. According to Holder, she wants to do work on her house and yard, but the state of the roads remains a constraint.

In some cases it appears difficult to tell where the drains end and the yards begin.
“Let me tell you, this morning I brought a truckload of sand and it couldn’t even come in here. I had to tell the man go away back, I didn’t even tell him throw it there; me husband can’t fetch the sand from down there to down here. We need roads, proper roads; we need lights, at least for when we coming in, at least to protect us; all the land are under water for the longest while,” Holder, a mother of five, said.

For Shawn Fiffee, a bus driver, the situation has also cost him a lot. Because of the state of the street where he lives, Fiffee is unable to park his bus in front of his house and instead has to park it some distance away at the head of the street.

He also has two other vehicles which are parked inside his street that cannot come out, since the street in question has a deep pothole that runs the entire width of the mud street.

BATTERY STOLEN
“Being that I’m parking so far away from where I’m living the security is not there, so people invade and take out my [bus] battery. Just the other day I had to purchase back a battery for $29,000. I have my car parked in front by me and I can’t bring it out; it start rotting, a car and a van. And we get promises how many years ago that they gon do something. Even if is lil’ crush and run to throw on the street, something. But they ain’t doing anything as yet,” Fiffee protested.

His yard is also constantly inundated.
“Well, I am very frustrated right now, my children they had to actually migrate from this area here; they can’t get to go to school. We can’t walk, the place always under water; rain don’t gah fall for this place to flood. This water in this gutter it never go down,” Fiffee said, pointing at a drain overrun with weeds and bushes.

“If you go in these people yard here, it flood and not for a month, is years now it deh like this; over three years now and we need something to be resolved. This thing here it overbearing. If the rain drizzle now this whole street flood, you gah tek off yuh boots and we are living in Greater Georgetown, imagine that. I think we are being neglected in this area and there are so many little children living in this area,” the bus driver lamented.
Oliver Kerr, a blind man who lives in one of the streets, also came out to register his complaints.

“You always have to go a long boots on. When it rains it worse than this; the children can’t get to go to school and them kind of things. They sliding down and all manner of things. We’ve made a lot of complaints to housing because is housing that responsible really. If you are putting people here, you have to put down proper infrastructure for the people,” Kerr said.

Kerr, along with Fiffee and other neighbours came together to build an elevated platform above their walkway, because the entire walkway is under water.

City Councillor with responsibility for ‘C’ Field, Sophia, Andria Marks, when contacted by this newspaper acknowledged that her constituency has some issues, but said improvements are on the way.

“My main road in ‘C’ Field is perfect, but the cross streets, we cannot do that as yet; we know some of the cross streets have never been done… don’t let us run away from it, is 23 years Sophia was living under bondage, thank God for the new coalition government; at least we could say we are seeing a little bit of light now in Sophia. I am giving my residents at least about a year or two more years from now, Sophia will get there. I am thankful for the little that the government has been doing, but ‘C’ Field will be getting there soon. I include Sophia in my next budget, so I will do [some roads, even] if is one, or two or three,” Marks said.

However, Sophia being able to access funds from City Hall will be dependent on the area being handed over to the Central Housing and Planning Authority (CH&PA). The CH&PA earlier this year had also indicated that plans are afoot to do infrastructural works in Sophia before the handing over.

“What we’re doing presently is going through the area and doing an inventory of the roads, etc. The infrastructure in Sophia is slated to be upgraded under the IDB [Inter-American Development Bank] reformulated loan,” CH&PA Chief Executive Officer Lelon Saul had said back in May.

CH&PA is hopeful of handing over the area before the end of 2018. Even after the handing over, Saul had said the CH&PA will endeavour to ensure that the infrastructure is up to standard and will continue to finance the upgrading.

Currently, Sophia is not benefiting from any of the services provided by the Mayor and City Council (M&CC) and as such, for years, basic amenities such as water and electricity could not be extended to residents of North Pattensen, North Sophia, and Block ‘R’ Extension, among other communities.