Sashagay Frazer, President of the Community Development Committee in Woodsville, Hanover, is urging authorities to fulfill promises to address the alternate route into the community, which remains neglected. Frazer emphasised that while authorities focus on the collapsed bridge, they should also attend to the alternate route, currently considered too lengthy, poorly maintained, and financially burdensome for residents. She highlighted the community's isolation for emergency assistance due to the route's condition.

‘The community is unreachable’

Woodsville CDC president calls for work to be done on alternate route

19 Aug 2023/Bryan Miller/Gleaner Writer

WESTERN BUREAU PRESIDENT OF the Community Development Committee (CDC) in Woodsville, Hanover, Sashagay Frazer, is calling on the authorities to make good on several promises to fix the alternate route into the community as to date nothing has been done to alleviate conditions for residents.

“While they (the authorities) are concerned about the replacement of the collapsed bridge, they need to also pay some attention to the alternate route that we are now asked to use as well, so as to make our lives a little bit easier,” she said.

She said residents are now finding t he alternate route identified by the National Works Agency (NWA) to be too long, bad, overgrown, and a financial burden to pedestrians and motorists alike.

“I remember the last community meeting that we had with the member of Parliament; he mentioned that some work is going to start on the alternative route. We are still awaiting same. I also pointed out then that the community is unreachable for any emergency assistance, as assessed by the municipal corporation. A fire truck cannot come in there, an ambulance cannot come in there, the community is unreachable,” she emphasised.

Frazer said that she had been asking further for a community representative to be included on a decision-making committee so that residents of the affected communities can be duly informed when decisions taken in their interest are arrived at.

“We are all unaware of what is happening. We do not have a liaison between the community and the persons who are making the decisions, and that is why the residents are all so frustrated,” she argued. She said people in the community are kept informed only by newspaper reports.

Highlighting the communities’ profile and dependence on the thoroughfare, Frazer said farming is a mainstay of the surrounding communities, with a tourist attraction, Mayfield Falls, located in the area, and, as such, transportation cost is a high priority item for all.

She said that a number of residents in the area work in the tourist industry in Hanover and St. James and have to travel to and from their community to work daily. She said with the alternate route still in no position to be used, this presents an added stress for commuters.

Frazer said that with the reopening of school scheduled to begin in a matter of weeks, concerns for the safety of the children have intensified. “How are the children going to reach school, and at what cost?” she queried.

Member of Parliament for Eastern Hanover, the constituency in which the Woodsville Bridge is located, Dave Brown, told The Gleaner earlier this week that soil testing has been done in the area, and the bridge design is now in its second phase. He stated too that a budgetted amount of $75 million is already in place for the replacement of the bridge, once the design has been finalised and approved.

The over 100-year-old Woodsville bridge, located along a key thoroughfare for the residents of several deep rural districts of Hanover, was first ordered closed by the National Works Agency (NWA), when signs of its deterioration became evident, after bouts of heavy rain in that area in April 2022. The bridge finally collapsed one year later in April 2023.

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