Dear Editor,
There is a critically important issue for the residents of the Pattensen (south) community, commonly called B Field Sophia. I became elated at the prospect of having the deplorable state of our main access road rectified, when in the April 2012 budget debates on government expenditure estimates, I noted that $33 million under the urban roads programme had been allocated for the repair of the roads.
For the majority of residents these roadworks were long overdue, even though some ‘patching‘ had been done the previous year. This road, I must mention, was completed in 2006 when the entire community benefited from a road construction project, but to our dismay within one year of the completion of the project, over 30% of all the surfaces were compromised and thus needed repairs; this deterioration has continued until present day.
Editor, this main road and the other carriageways within the community serve over 5,000 residents, who own approximately over 150 personal vehicles. The public transportation fleet of minibuses number over 28, plus the Section B Pattensen main road is strategically the only carriageway within the entire Sophia catchment area that is accessible by vehicular traffic (via three bridges which the community built and maintain), that comes from the Lamaha Park and other sister communities in the southern section of Georgetown. It equally serves to ease traffic on the East Coast corridor for commuters coming from higher up the East Coast and heading to the East Bank.
I would have thought that such a critically useful roadway that has sunk into the deplorable state it’s in today, would have generated a more robust effort to get the job done, but alas this is not so.
During the month of June I noticed the Minister of Public Works one Saturday afternoon negotiating his vehicle through the same main road, and took this to mean that he was putting some personal effort into bringing this road project to fruition; however, still to date there has been absolute silence on the works to be done.
To the credit of some youths within the community, they can be seen daily seeking out all types of builders waste and other materials to put into the gaping craters that the road has been reduced to, and I must say thanks to the minibus drivers who continue to hazard their vehicles and safety to provide our residents with public transportation, which is very imperative in a working class neighbourhood such as ours.
As a community servant and resident of this community, I would like to implore the responsible Minister and his technical and works team to please find a way to get the road done, especially now that we are into a somewhat dry period.
I think the people of our community deserve this, and of course many of the persons from our sister communities too; it’s been seven months too long.
Yours faithfully,
Colin Marks
Pattensen Community
Development Council
