Councillor promises to rectify manhole woes in Blue Basin

Carisa Lee

Reporter

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Blue Basin/Bagatelle councillor Alina Renn says she is working to rectify the issue of missing manhole covers along the North Post Road in Diego Martin.

She said the Diego Martin Borough Corporation (DMBC) is currently waiting on the materials to start the work.

However, even with her acknowledgement, residents yesterday said they will believe it only when they see action.

“The ministry blaming the regional corporation and the corporation blaming the ministry. You could see that the concrete is eroding and the steel protruding. It needs to be redone, not a no-easy-fix that you put a slab of concrete and you’re done,” one resident, who asked to remain anonymous, said.

The woman, who lives along the roadway, said they have been dealing with the issue for years, and she has seen many people, including children from the nearby primary school, fall into the open holes. She said when the rain falls, the open manholes are covered, making it a hazard. She provided video footage of the students being forced to walk in the middle of the roadway due to the open manholes.

“We had to actually ask somebody who close to the prime minister (Dr Keith Rowley), who works in his office, to see if we could get it repaired and I believe that is how we get it repaired but it was a few years of waiting, so we wondering if we have to wait a few years again,” she said.

She explained that earlier this year, slabs were installed but a bus drove onto the sidewalk and damaged them, reintroducing the problem.

Contacted on the issue, Renn said as soon as the materials are made available, work will commence and new manholes will be installed. The councillor said resources were recently deployed toward the replacement of manhole covers along the Blue Basin Road.

Another resident, Rupraj Baboolalsingh, said the situation was so bad he almost took matters into his own hands.

“I clean out the whole base, bust out all the blocks that fall in the hole, take it out and I made plant beds with it at the side of the road and plant plants. Recently, I was going and cover it with ply but the ply wasn’t making sense because it will deteriorate and people will get damage more,” Baboolalsingh said.

He said many elderly residents were affected as well.

“Sometimes they stick their foot inside the hole, they get damage, an ambulance comes and takes them, nobody compensates them,” he shared.

The residents also called for repairs to a retaining wall in a nearby river to be completed and for a more frequent, scheduled garbage collection, especially near the River Estate Museum.