Road fixes begin in St Thomas 

The parish of St Thomas is now benefitting from the government’s Accelerated Mill and Pave Programme.

Touring the Arthur Seat area on Wednesday,  Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Transport, Works and Water Resources Santia Bradshaw said while Barbadians wanted to see road works all across the country, it had to be done in a systematic way.

“For the sake of clarity, this particular programme is targeted at those roads where they are in bad condition, yes, but equally there are little or no utilities that have to come in to be able to come and do any major works. Arthur Seat, therefore, falls within that criteria, and we are starting this today. There is also the Canewood to Proute [road] as well that will be also done from tonight in St Thomas, and for the benefit of those who would have been asking about the Shop Hill to Content [road], that will also be sorted very shortly, along with Cane Garden to Bridgefield.

“Those last two roads . . . are roads which require not just straight mill and pave but they require a bit more rehabilitation to ensure that issues in relation to drainage are properly addressed,” she said.

Bradshaw also gave an update on the mill and pave programme that began in Salters, St George some weeks ago: “I think the first road that was started was in Salters in St George; Salters to Content. I am pleased to say that those road works have been completed, and when you visit the area you will also see that there also has been some pothole patching done very clinically in a number of areas along that road. As we wouldn’t do the full area, we would have been able to identify a number of the soft spots to be able to rectify [with] pothole patching.

“The nature of that work is very similar to what is going on across the rest of the parishes. We have completed a number of roads in St Peter, in particular around the Speightstown area – Chapel Street, Bovell Road, Mango Lane – and others in close proximity have been completed to date. Crab Hill to Archers Bay in St Lucy has also been started and extensive paving has also commenced in those areas and has made the road to Archers Bay, which is a popular tourist attraction, particularly more attractive than it has been before.”

Member of Parliament for St Thomas Cynthia Forde, who was happy to witness the start of the road works, urged Barbadians to be patient: “I hope the citizens will pay attention and respect when they have to have detours and all of that because it’s only temporary . . . to get the improvement, we have to have a little bit of suffering in between, depending on whatever the project is.” (SB)