Most of the internal roads in Grove, East Bank Demerara, are almost impassable, according to residents, who want them repaired.
Stabroek News visited the community on Monday and observed streets with potholes ranging from small depressions to large faults.
“These holes have been here forever and I don’t think the authorities should’ve let them get to this point, considering how developed this community is,” Henry Fausett, who lives in the area, told Stabroek News.
He explained that he has been living in the area for almost a decade and for as long as he can remember, the roads have always been in a “terrible and worrying” condition. “It’s really bad and we are fed up of all the damages it causes to people’s vehicles. It’s really terrible.
Every time you trying to get through the street, you got to be real careful or you could cause major damages to your car and sometime you just can’t avoid them with how big they are,” the man added.
Another resident related that when there is heavy rainfall, the deep potholes “turn into pools” that are even more dangerous. “…And in the night it’s even more bad because you barely got lights to see where you going, so you bound to drop in some deep hole even if you know the area,” he noted.
“You can’t even ride a bicycle or a motorcycle properly in these streets. Is like you need off-road vehicles how they so bad,” the man said, while relating that he believes since the community is so populated, the residents should not be forced to traverse on such subpar roadways.
Chairman of the Grove/Diamond Neighbourhood Democratic Council (NDC) Bharat Narine had told Stabroek News last month that the roads in the two communities were under the responsibility of the Ministry of Public Infrastructure (MPI). However, he said, when he became NDC Chairman last year, he had made special efforts to meet with the officials from the ministry to ensure that there is a plan they could roll out soon to start repairs on the deplorable roads in the Diamond/Grove community.
“In December we started from the back doing some patches from Fourth Bridge and due to the inclement weather we couldn’t continue. We had stopped and did something at 19th Street and wanted to do Third Bridge but we had a meeting with MPI and they told us they have it in their work plan,” he added, while noting that several other inner roads in the area are also slated to be done by the ministry.
“The capacity of the NDC does not allow us to do major works on roads.
All we can do is fill holes and do small patches but we can’t do complete roads and main thoroughfares but they [MPI] are looking at it,” he said.
