Belle West Phase 2 speak out about roads
Phase 2, Belle West
Belle West Housing Scheme Phases 1 and 2 are situated on the West Bank of Demerara, and the community has been in existence for more than a decade. Its population is approximately 5,000 persons, and, in the front of the community, a squatting area is now beginning to emerge; residents say that Venezuelan migrants occupy this section. For access to water, residents from Belle West and other communities in Canal Number Two depend on a water pump station situated almost at the end of Canal Number Two. Residents of the community on Wednesday took Stabroek News on a tour where our reporter was exposed to various sections of the scheme and the tortuous experiences that residents recounted. Ingress and secondary roads
After years of suffering under both PPP/C and APNU+AFC administrations, residents can no longer stay quiet and are beseeching the new government not to turn a deaf ear especially when their children have to endure these inhumane conditions. Approximately two thousand residents of Phase Two use these streets. In Third Street, one of the access streets from the Belle West Main Road, Gagaram Gupt lives. The road is all red loam and last year its badly deteriorated crush-and-run road was dug up to be rehabilitated. The dug up crush-and-run can be seen at the head of the street. According Gupt, workers spread red loam at both ends of the street, but, in the middle of the street there is a grass covered swamp. The swamp, by the way, existed prior to the execution of the rehabilitative works. The green, green grass of home “They just scrape part of the street then they went and do the back street then they come back and scrape here and then they gone way. All the machine gone away and they left back deh. When me tell them to just scrape it and put lil mud on it, they seh tek bucket and full it”, the resident said. What complicates any attempt at drainage of roads is that the drains at the southern end are at a higher elevation, therefore any excess water from the drains eventually ends up in the street, and potholes and craters then becomes a pond. Over time, grass grew and covered the pool in its entirety. As soon as the drains overtop and this part of the street turns into a swamp, a few residents would try to dig drains as outflows along the sides of the road for the water to run out at the northern end, where the drains are just slightly below road level, but there is not much that can be done when the drains are already filled to the capacity. Where the stagnated water is visible are evidences of potholes, but these are filled with overgrown bushes.
The last access street is split in two, with grass covering one half, while ponds run along the other half. A few fish can be seen swimming in tadpole filled ponds. Last year, two residents died from snake bites. Taxi drivers refuse to come into the streets even when there is an emergency. “This hey so ain’t ready with the ones them we have at the back of the scheme”, said Seenath Sookraj, a resident from the Back Street who made his way to Third Street to speak on his issues. Sookraj then took this newspaper on a tour along the rest of Phase Two. Not a properly done street was in sight. In fact, it was difficult to differentiate what was dam and what was road, and grass grew in all areas. “At the back deh suh, is not no road no more. At the back deh is like when you minding pig, that’s what it looks like. In that Back Street alone, we have about twenty-one children and da is what they does got to go through”, Sookraj said.
“I got four children and many time they got to come out to go to school, I got to bring them out. The oldest is thirteen, the youngest is six. My wife would got to carry them out when I’m not around. One time she was trying to carry them out on her bicycle and she gone in a hole and topple right over with the children them on the bicycle”, Sookraj said. During the PPP administration when the scheme was first opened, all the streets were constructed using red loam. Under the APNU+AFC government, crush-and-run roads were constructed but a few years later, they are no longer clearly visible. Later on during the previous government also, several of the access streets of the eastern half of Phase Two along with the main road were done using bitumen but nothing was done along the western half of the