News

Eroding road raises concern

By CAROLYN JOHNSON, Star Writer

MOTORISTS AND RESIDENTS of Nugent Street, Spanish Town, St Catherine, are concerned about their safety.

They are calling for authorities to address an eroding road which has become a serious hazard. Nugent Street, along which Buck Town is situated, is a popular alternate route to Brunswick Avenue for residents of Ensom City and adjoining communities. However a section of this road, close to a corner, has become eroded and parts of the retaining wall are missing.

"As soon as a heavy vehicle go on it, it a go bruk rite in two," said Linford Wright, a resident from the area.

The state of the road residents have said is also a serious hazard for drivers. "It very, very bad because when you coming around you have to keep watching the left hand side and right. Make sure nobody coming around before you pass," said Christopher Boothe, a resident of Eltham Park.

Work has been done on the road, but it was not complete. The repairs which included stacking gabion baskets to rebuild the wall lasted for weeks and reduced the road to single lane traffic. But now an obvious layer of bush now remains where the work was taking place.

According to Ms. Petra-Kene Williams, acting manager of the communication and customer services department at the National Works Agency, the agency had started to rebuild the retaining wall under the National Road Improvement Project. However, this project which included work on approximately 44 roads, stopped in 2004 because of a lack of funds.

Although some of the work slated under this project was transferred to other programmes, she was unable to say if Nugent Street were among the lot. "If you say that the situation is deteriorating what we could do at this point in time is ask one of our officers to just inspect the site once more and see what the residents are speaking of," she said.