Lucea gets a facelift

Claudia Gardner

WESTERN BUREAU:

Mayor of Lucea, Wynter McIntosh, said in the three months since he took over the reins from former mayor Shernett Haughton, much of his time has been devoted to improving the aesthetics of Lucea.

"When we took over, the town was in a bad state, and with the support from the deputy (mayor), we were able to undertake a massive clean-up on the 25th of October," said McIntosh. "We saw some 40 tonnes of garbage coming out of Lucea - between the bus park, the fisherman's village and sections of Cressy's Lane going up to Millers Drive. We were able to move all that garbage to give the town a better look," he said.

"Since then, we have undertaken an approach where we now have a maintenance team, because there is no way we want to see the town go back to the state that it was," the mayor said.

According to McIntosh, a team of 10

persons has also been assigned to maintain the streets of the town and the drains which run parallel to them.

"Their (the team's) responsibility is to make sure all the drains on Main Street, Millers Drive, Seaview Drive and the Willie Delisser Boulevard are on a maintenance programme," the mayor said.

Maintenance programme

McIntosh further noted that the problematic Venture Gutter, the town's central drain, has also been included in the maintenance programme, despite it being the responsibility of the National Works Agency (NWA).

"Nobody asks NWA why it is that the Venture Gutter looks like that. They look at the parish council, and quite so, since it is in the heart of the town," said McIntosh. "The mayor has jurisdiction for a one-mile radius, and also because the deputy mayor is the councillor for the town, there is no way we should have the Venture Gutter going into a state where its is so unsightly that people cannot bear the sight of it."

With respect to garbage disposal and management, McIntosh said the municipal police assigned to the council will have to be more vigilant to ensure that wayward

residents adhere to the anti-litter laws or face prosecution.

"Our municipal police were employed to, for one, make sure that there is some amount of law and order in the town of Lucea as it relates to garbage," the mayor noted. "They will have to start the ticketing. Persons must understand that you can't urinate everywhere in Lucea; you can't thrown your garbage in Lucea, so they (municipal police) will have to become very active in this process."

"The business people themselves - their holding areas - some of them are not bad, but some I have written to them asking them to make proper security for their garbage so that the dogs and goats and the mentally challenged persons don't have access to those," McIntosh explained.

The mayor, who is also councillor of the Chester Castle division, said attention had also been given to the development of the historic Fort Charlotte in the town, as a tourist attraction.