Three days of protests over bad road in Point Hill yield results

Ruddy Mathison, Gleaner Writer 

After three days of protests of blocking sections of the Point Hill Main Road in St Catherine, relief came on Wednesday afternoon for taxi and minibus operators and residents when patch work started on the roadway.

The protesters started blocking the road on Monday and despite efforts by the police to clear the blockage, the enraged taxi operators mounted more roadblocks using fallen trees to press their demands for the corridor to be repaired, which they claimed has been neglected for decades.

They were also demanding a meeting with their Member of Parliament Dr Christopher Tufton.

Tufton met with the protesters on Wednesday and made it clear that while he supports constituents finding creative ways to protest, he does not support the blocking of roads as it is illegal and disrupts the smooth functioning of communities.

He then went on to assure them that there is planned major rehabilitation for the road, but in the meantime, efforts are being made to address the worse sections of the corridor until an infrastructure improvement project has been approved.

That project will involve the laying of water pipes along the road to facilitate major water improvement in sections of the constituency.

“We are at a stage where it is evident that the work is being done on the ground, the challenge with that job is that it is not wise to fix the road in a comprehensive way until the National Water Commission finishes running the pipes, so what I have explained to them is that major repairs have to be delayed until the piping is complete,” Tufton told The Gleaner.

He continued: “So what I have asked the NWA [ National Works Agency] to do is visit the areas that are worse affected and give a temporary estimate to do some temporary work to address some of these areas in a temporary way until the pipes are run so that we can do major work on the road.”

He said the temporary work will address the worse sections of the road from St Johns Road to Cudjoe Hill in the constituency.

No time was wasted after this announcement by Tufton as a few hours later workmen were seen carrying out preparatory work to undertake patching of sections of the roadway.

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