Experts start critical assessment in White Hill to solve long-standing woes

Preliminary work to determine the best road solution for White Hill, St Andrew is underway in earnest, more than seven years after a large chunk of the main road leading into the community collapsed as a result of heavy rainfall.

On Tuesday, Barbados TODAY discovered experts with specialized equipment in the rural community conducting geotechnical work.

Chief Technical Officer at the Ministry of Transport and Works, Phillip Tudor explained the work will determine where the road should come and what type of road it should be.

Tudor said: “What we are doing is boreholes, that is where we drill, let’s say,  100-feet deep to see what the soil profile is going to be like, and it informs us what type of structure we should put there at White Hill. It lets us know what the soil type is like and it allows us to determine if we should build a bridge or piles or whatever the solution would be at that location.”

The MTW chief said the works began in earnest between Monday and Tuesday and it should be completed within the next few weeks.

“The drilling we anticipate will take another three weeks or so, and once we get the soil sample they would then be analyzed and then the engineer would then come up with a solution as to what should be built at White Hill, if the road should go back to the same place that it was originally or if it should go higher or lower,” he added.

“So that is what that work is going to determine – where the road should come and what type of road it should be.”

Residents have for years complained of being neglected, lamenting that their pleas for improved road conditions had continually fallen on deaf ears.

Despite several promises from the former Democratic Labour Party administration, no progress was made.

However, back in March, Minister of Transport, Works and Water Resources Management Ian Gooding-Edghill said White Hill was priority number one, under the instruction of Prime Minister Mia Amor Mottley.

During debate on the 2021-22 Estimates of Revenue and Expenditure, Mottley revealed that the work was to be undertaken under the Chinese-funded Complant/Scotland District Road Rehabilitation Project.

More than three dozen roads in the Scotland District will be rebuilt under the project, starting with White Hill.

The project also entails the reconstruction of the entire Ermie Bourne Highway, all the way to Bathsheba and across St John.

(kobiebroomes@barbadostoday.bb)