Region Five’s Bel Air residents to benefit from road upgrade

DPI, Guyana, Tuesday, March 13, 2018

Region Five, Mahaica-Berbice is the largest rice producing region in Guyana. With much of its production based in the southernmost parts of the region, there is a network of farm-to-market roads in place to facilitate farmers getting their produce to the various rice mills, with one main access road running north to south in each district.

One such road can be found in St John Village on the West Coast of Berbice. With the vast acreage of rice under cultivation aback of the Hopetown area, there is heavy traffic along this access road during the harvesting period which coincides with the dry season.

Residents of eastern Bel Air, better known as Number Twenty-Two Village, which lies on the western side of the St John access road have, over the years, endured much discomfort due to clouds of dust blown up from the earthen surface of the road, as vehicles make their way in and out of the rice fields.

They have also noted that during the rainy season the condition of Bowman Street, another access road in the community leaves much to be desired. According to the villagers, they are often forced to use the other streets whenever it rains rather than to trudge through the heavy mud to get to the public road.

The Region Five administration has awarded the contracts to A and A Engineering for the upgrade of both roads.

The sum of $8M will be spent on resurfacing a stretch of the St John access road.  Another $9M has been awarded to repair Bowman Street from the eastern boundary of the village that runs parallel to the St John access road. The upgrade of Bowman Street is expected to commence shortly.

 

By: Bertie Peters