Shared services reaches agreement on emergency road to Aberdeen hospital

PICTOU — A purchase agreement will be drafted for an emergency vehicle road leading into the Aberdeen Hospital.

It was agreed during a Pictou County Shared Services meeting Monday, which includes representatives from all six local municipalities, that the road will be purchased from the Town of New Glasgow.

Each individual council, including New Glasgow, agreed that the roadway which leads to the hospital’s new emergency department will be bought using money from a deed transfer tax trust.

The land for the new road was purchased in 2017 by the Town of New Glasgow for $432,000 and an additional $465,967.98 was spent on construction, including legal fees, lighting and urban forestry.

The Deed Transfer Tax Trust was established to collect funds toward capital debt for the Pictou County Wellness Centre and the Aberdeen Hospital ER renovations. The money is generated through a one per cent tax on sales of homes in the towns of Pictou, New Glasgow, Stellarton, Trenton and the Municipality of the County of Pictou.

Westville is not part of this trust, but does have its own deed transfer tax, so it recently agreed to make its own payment of $74,531.34 for its share of the project as well as payment for the ER and pharmacy. The road was not part of the original plans for Aberdeen Hospital renovations so the provincial government did not include it in its capital costs.

In 2014, when a funding agreement for the new ER/ pharmacy was signed between the Pictou County Health Authority and the six units it was agreed that New Glasgow would undertake the access road project.