Thu | Mar 28, 2024

Save May Pen now

Published:Wednesday | September 19, 2018 | 12:00 AM

THE EDITOR, Sir:

We are currently in the 2018 Atlantic hurricane season and the membership of Young People Advocating Change organisation is alarmed that we are now midway the season, and some very important authorities are seemingly fast asleep.

We say this against the backdrop that in recent times, any level of sustained rainfall has been having a near-fatal effect on the town of May Pen and, by extension, the residents there.

It really did not take any high levels of thinking on our part to realise that the road development project from Guinep Tree into Chapelton is flawed in its execution. This is the single greatest factor fuelling flooding activities in May Pen in the recent past. Why is this so?

The project designers - for reasons unknown to us, opted to start that project in the middle (Soursop Turn) and upwards. This is literally a valley built to essentially dump water on May Pen if serious rains are a reality. This will no doubt have consequential impacts on May Pen. We want to ask these questions:

To the NWA. What plans are in place to complete the road from Guinep Tree to SourSop Turn?

What happened to the funding that was billed to complete the road project (Guinep Tree to Chapelton)?

Is there a plan to widen the drainage system to accommodate the higher volumes of water as we are experiencing recently?

The development of any modern community is one that takes into consideration the removal of wastes (solid and otherwise). If this is not done, then that community is a development in degradation. May Pen has a perennial problem of rancid, stagnant stench that is most times unbearable. Our questions to the relevant authorities are these:

To the Clarendon Municipal Corporation. To what extent are all commercial entities incorporated in any sewage plans?

If there is no central sewage system in place, how soon can this be made a reality?

The heavy or consistent rainfalls are compounding the issues as there may be serious outbreaks of diseases, if these issues are not dealt with expeditiously.

Dei-Rasi Freckleton

youthchangeja@gmail.com