No quick fix for Chesterfield Drive
As another hurricane season looms, residents of Seaview Gardens and motorists who frequent Chesterfield Drive in St Andrew are in store for much despair.
Whenever it rains, a less than delightful array of garbage, mud and in some cases even large appliances are washed from all sections of the Corporate Area and settle along the busy thoroughfare. Recent heavy rainfall has sent large tree branches to join the buffet or garbage, taking up well more than half of the roadway.
Communications manager at the National Works Agency, Stephen Shaw, told THE WEEKEND STAR that the area poses several challenges as it is a natural drainage point.
“If you look at the lay of the land, that area is one of the lowest points in the city. It is the area where it is the natural drainage point for a lot of storm water for sections of the city. So you’ll find the water going in that general direction,” he said. “The trouble is we have a problem with the disposal of waste garbage so the system is usually overwhelmed because of the sheer volume of garbage that comes down from the many communities around.” Shaw says more permanent improvements to the area cannot move forward until funding has been secured.
“We have to get the money to keep up with a comprehensive drainage improvement programme for that area and others in the
Corporate Area. [In the meantime] They [residents] can stop dumping in the gullies and encourage their fellow citizens not to do so,” he said.
Seaview Gardens resident Almando Bailey says much more than garbage management needs to be done.
“Every time di rain fall it (water) come over because the road never fix good from before. By the rain fall, it nuh affi fall a Seaview, from it fall up pon di hill deh, Half-Way Tree way dung here block. That’s the problem we have cause the people dem weh live pon the gully bank throw the fridge and the mattress and everything dem throw inah the gully,” he said. “Di Government need to get dem offa di gully bank or something because it nah guh stop and a we a feel it.”