Catherina’s Lust, Baker Street residents benefit from improved access roads
DPI, Guyana, Friday, October 20, 2017
Nestled aback of the Region Five administrative complex, at Fort Wellington, West Coast Berbice (WCB), about half a mile south of the Public Road, is a rapidly developing housing scheme on lands acquired from the Hopetown Multipurpose Co-op Limited.
Access road to housing scheme.
Catherina’s Lust, South, as the scheme is officially known, is home to a number of retired public servants, as well as several remigrant Guyanese who have acquired house lots in the scheme. There are also a number of homes under construction. The scheme is already serviced by the Guyana Power and Light (GPL) and the Guyana Water Incorporated (GWI). However, residents have had difficulty traversing the approximately half mile stretch of access road between the scheme and the Public Road, particularly during the rainy season; while decision makers quibbled over whose responsibility it was to surface the road. Persons, many of them public servants, were forced to use long boots to trudge through heavy mud to get to the Public Road.
There were elements within the Regional Democratic Council (RDC) who were known to have been objecting to the road being upgraded; citing the fact that it is a farm to market road and that there was every likelihood that heavy agriculture machinery would damage the road.
Students on their way to school along Baker Street.
The private company, Air Services Limited (ASL), with an aerodrome in the vicinity, providing aerial services in the rice industry (broadcasting seed, applying fertilizer as well as spraying for pest control) would access their facility via a section of the said road. The company deployed workers and machinery to carry out rehabilitative works on the said road, with approval from the relevant authorities. However, they were forced to suspend the operation because of unfavorable weather conditions. Following a break in the weather, there was a new initiative as the regional administration awarded a contract for the upgrading of the road. This was a welcome relief to farmers, and even more so for the residents of the Catherinas Lust Housing Scheme. They now have use of an all-weather road surfaced with crush-and-run costing nineteen million dollars.
Like Catherina’s Lust Housing Scheme, there is a section of Number Twenty-Two Village, on the eastern section, within the Union – Naarstigeid Neighborhood Democratic Council (NDC), whose residents over the years have felt neglected and have been clamoring for the upgrade of Baker Street. No longer would folks be forced to cover longer distances to get home because they are trying to avoid the muddy street. Neither would the children be forced to cover longer distances to and from school during the rainy season.
Baker Street was upgraded to a crush-and-run surface at a cost of just over nine million dollars.
By: Bertie Peters