Dear Editor,
A short comment regarding your article about the Chinese forest products developer Bai Shan Lin and their proposed five square kilometre site at Providence East Coast Demerara:
For the benefit of the public, all land between Lamaha Street and Mandela Avenue and from High Street to Vlissengen Road measures approximately five square kilometres.
The area of the original wards of Georgetown was six square kilometers, and with the expansion of Georgetown in 1970 to Cummings Lodge in the east and parts of Rome to the south its present area is forty square kilometres.
Assuming there was no error about the reported area to be developed, it should be obvious that careful planning is necessary to alleviate the negative impacts that will result. What immediately comes to mind is increased traffic congestion on the East Bank Road, and it would seem to me that the developers should be required to build a highway (the southern approach highway) from Mandela Avenue to at least as far as Diamond.
Yours faithfully,
Edward Gonsalves
