By Vanessa Braithwaite

– Amelia’s Ward residents thankful for work done on Main Street

AFTER years of suffering from a muddy, deplorable road filled with craters, the residents of Amelia’s Ward, and those residing in connecting communities to ‘Main Street’ are now lifting their heads in appreciation that the main thoroughfare has benefitted from a multimillion dollar contract, which has made its construction possible.

Thousands of residents residing in Cinderilla City and Central Amelia’s Ward, previously had to traverse the once deplorable roadway either in their own transportation or in public transportation. While promises were made for many years that the road would have been repaired, the residents were not too optimistic that it was placed in the region’s 2018 budget and would have been done, but to see it actually happened, one resident described it as a ‘dream come through’.

“We have been struggling with that road for years, if you didn’t have transportation, you were doomed, you had to walk straight out to the other main road because them cars refused to come down here, you might lucky if they put you off at the ‘glass house’ (a popular stop point along Main Street) and then you have to find your way down the rest of the road. When the rain falls it was messy, it was muddy, so I am very happy that the road is finally done,” resident of Cinderilla City Lennox Cort said.

Another resident of Central Amelia’s Ward Shirley Rigby also applauded the officials for finally hearing their cry and making it possible for them to have a well repaired access road. “We are very grateful, very happy, we see the road coming along nicely, we are looking for it to finish,” the resident said.

Another resident of Cinderilla City Debra Bourne said that it is good that the road is being done given the many struggles the residents have to face up with. She too is awaiting its completion. The residents are hoping that the short drop taxis do not continue to shun them, but take advantage of the smooth road to drop them to the nearest access point to their homes, without charging extra as was previously done. “We were very much frustrated with that road, we the people of this community are suffering because of that road, vehicles don’t want to come in,” Mr. Webster, resident of Cinderilla City had said.

NO WORK FOR US

While the residents of Cinderilla City were promised employment by the contractor and by Minister Simona Broomes during a community meeting, residents related on Sunday that they were not beneficiaries of any form of employment as was expected. Minister Broomes had even distributed tools to the residents, especially the women, to work along with the contractor in an effort to provide local content and to empower the residents in the community. Broomes had said too, that she would have held discussions with the contractors to employ the women to do ‘clean up’ jobs while the road is being constructed.
According to the liaison resident Debra Bourne, the residents were asked to provide the relevant documentation that was required for the job, but to date; nothing has been said to them. She expressed the frustration in the situation since she would have been the one to collect the documentation and the residents are therefore looking to her for answers. “We haven’t heard back anything, we weren’t given any employment,” she said.
Minister Broomes had said, “The whole idea is that whenever persons come into your community to do work, you must be a part of it.”

Despite this hiccup, the residents are focusing on the bigger picture, that the road is finally being done.

In addition to the main street in Amelia’s Ward, other roads that will be done are Toucan Drive Main Road; Speight Land access road; River Side Drive, Stanley Road in the Wismar Hill Primary School area; the ball-field road; the teachers’ compound main access road; and the post office road in Wismar. Out of the $3.4B budget, $322.5 M has been allocated for Public Infrastructure in Region 10.

ASPHALT PLANT
With a portable asphalt plant available in Linden that is currently being assembled at the Christianburg area, road construction in Linden in 2018 is expected to be expedited. The plant which is fully automatic and computerised is being powered by a low emission generator. It will produce 160 tonnes of asphalt per hour. With asphalt being available in Linden, the production of roads is expected to be lower, as such the surplus funds can be used to construct and repair more roads.