Hanover residents block road to keep out marl trucks
RESIDENTS OF Santoy district in Hanover have resorted to blocking the main road in their community to keep out trucks transporting marl to a site that is being dumped up to construct a new hotel in Green Island.
According to the residents who blocked the road on Thursday and Friday, the marl is creating a nuisance to persons with respiratory illnesses and the heavy trucks are damaging the road surface.
Checks by The Gleaner have revealed that while small vehicles are allowed to travel through without hindrance, trucks, especially those l aden with marl, are being prevented from passing through.
“We want the potholes that the trucks dem create to be filled out. We block it (the road) yesterday (Thursday), and today (Friday), and we de go block it whole week if de hole dem no full out,” Herron ‘Bongo’ Ferguson, a resident of Santoy, told The Gleaner on Friday.
“We can’t l ock down we community because de people dem inna de community have to go to work, so we not letting through no truck man. We want de road fi fix before dem (the truckers) can go through,” said Ferguson, who said if their pleas are ignored, they will take their protest to the Green Island main road.
When Marvell Sewell, councillor for the Green Island Division, was contacted for a comment on the situation, he said he is embarrassed by the suffering of the affected residents and wants urgent action to be taken to remedy the situation. When the problem first surfaced, Sewell said he regretted supporting the approval for the construction of the hotel.
The new 2,000-room Princess Hotel is being constructed on a waterfront property, which requires some amount of dumping up of the land to create a solid base for the buildings.
“The issue I am having right now is that the member of parliament, Tamika Davis, had stated that she has the situation of the damaged roads under control, and I thought that something, even temporarily, would have taken place already,” said Sewell.
“Nothing is being done. There are some places on the roadway that are impassable; and the community is united on this issue, everyone is saying the same thing,” Sewell added.
However, when contacted, Davis told The Gleaner that she was disappointed with the action taken by the residents of Santoy, as she is of the view that a good relationship existed with the developers, who are always willing to address whatever problems that are brought to their attention.
“I am not taking away anything from the complaints of the residents, (I am) not saying that the truckers do not have a responsibility. I am not saying some of the damage is not caused by them (the truckers), but not all of it; and I will go further to say that they are willing to do remedial works,” said Davis.
Davis told The Gleaner that on hearing of the agitation of the residents, she made contact with the developers of the project and they have given a commitment to do some remedial work by today.
“I spoke to the contractors and I was told that a team has been dispatched to do an assessment, and thereafter, it will be submitted and work will begin on Monday,” said Davis.