Finish the job, please!

A St Andrew man wants the Barbados Water Authority (BWA) to restore his driveway to a state of normalcy nearly two months after they dug it up to repair a burst main.

Jeffrey Blackman told Barbados TODAY that the large main at the front of his Coggins Hill house burst in the early hours of April 3, sending gallons of water into the air and then down the hill.

He said the BWA crew visited later that afternoon, dug a large hole, repaired the main and promised to return the following day to clean up the job. However, 45 days later, the gaping hole remains and as a result, he is unable to access his driveway.

“They gave me a timeline. They said the mason would have come and replaced it the following day. That would have been the 4th, but they didn’t tell me the 4th of which month, because the 4th of April has gone ever since and they haven’t fixed it yet and up to this day, I am still struggling to get my van off the road,” Blackman lamented.

“I can’t get into my driveway and I called everybody and they said it is up to a mason. I want to know if the water works only has one mason.

“As you can see, I have to park my van over yonder and I have animals in the back, so I have to bring the feed a long distance when I could have driven closer to the animals.

“So it has me working harder and harder and it feels like people don’t care. I called the water works company many times and they would not respond. Everybody is saying ‘yes, we will fix it Mr Blackman, we will do it for you’, but I am getting nothing done,” he added.

When contacted on Wednesday, the BWA General Manager Keithroy Halliday revealed that the state-owned entity’s response times have been delayed by the unavailability of vehicles.

He however said efforts were underway to resolve a backlog.

“Unfortunately, our response time to issues such as this has been delayed by the unavailability of vehicles for our crews to utilize,” said Halliday.

“However, we are working to have the backlog of work resolved in the shortest possible time,” he added. kareemsmith@barbadostoday.bb