Plans to fix more roads in St Catherine North East

Minister without Portfolio in the Ministry of Economic Growth and Job Creation Everald Warmington has announced that more road rehabilitation projects will come to St Catherine North East this financial year.

“I have been in the constituency four times because of the expansive nature and the level of deterioration of the infrastructure and I have seen firsthand what needed to be done,” Warmington said while on a road tour of the constituency on Thursday (February 24) with a technical team from the National Works Agency (NWA) and Member of Parliament Kerensia Morrison.

“Today we looked at roads in Treadways, Russell Pen and Mountain Pass. When I first visited, there were a lot of breakaways that had to be rebuilt and roads that we have to rehabilitate. So far, only the natural bridge to Troja which the NWA has estimated at $380 million that we can’t do one time. So we have split it and the first phase will be done at a cost of $160 million and phase two to begin shortly after.”

PRIORITY

Warmington said the three roads have seen many decades of deterioration and they are a priority. He has instructed the NWA to prepare an estimate so that work can begin in the financial year 2022-23.

Morrison said she is happy for the citizens of her constituency, who have struggled for decades to see improvements to their infrastructure.

“I was able to lobby and now the improvements are coming, the Guys Hill main road is the flagship in all of this and I am extremely happy for the people of that constituency,” she told The Gleaner.

“Work to rehabilitate a section of the Riversdale to Williamsfield main road, part of the Troja road, the Freetown road where some $40 million have already been spent to put in retaining walls are currently ongoing, as well as a number of farm roads,” Morrison noted.

She said improvements to the water systems that have starved the citizens of running water for decades are also being addressed simultaneously. The MP pointed to the upgrading of the Lucky Valley system that serves some 2,000 people, and the Guys Hill system that are now operating as solutions to the age-old water crisis she inherited when she took over the constituency.

Morrison added that the Cheesfield system is at the point where residents are now required to go in to the NWC and regularised, while a proposal has been put to the NWC to consider the feasibility of the Riversdale system.