As part of massive development slated for the East Bank Demerara corridor, some $1.4 billion will be used to upgrade community roads, Minister of Housing and Water Collin Croal on Wednesday disclosed.
Minister Croal was addressing the issue of squatting along the sea defence reserve when he made the announcement. The communities that will benefit are Eccles, Perseverance, Providence, Herstelling, Farm, Peter’s Hall, Little Diamond and Great Diamond.
“Before the next we will be engaging all of those communities because we are about to commence work to that cluster to a tune of about $54 million to move a number of those roads to asphaltic concrete. To those within Herstelling, Farm, Little Diamond we will be spending about $1.3 billion to move a number of those roads to asphaltic concrete [and] at Great Diamond another $100 million will be expended to develop the roads,” Minister Croal said.
Speaking during the opening of the Diamond to Mocha interlink road last year, the Minister said some $28B is being invested to provide access to water and road networks along the East Bank. He said, in a multi-agency approach, the Ministry along with its agencies such as the Central Housing and Planning Authority (CH&PA), are aggressively addressing the lack of access roads and its effects on housing development.
“We will come back to every one of those areas and identify and announce, as well as introduce those contractors who will be doing those works. We have over 1,178 community roads that are being done on the coastline from Regions Two to Six that is moving those roads from where it is to concrete and asphaltic concrete. These have already been awarded,” he added.
Some 100 low-income houses are currently under construction at Prospect and construction and another 522 at Little and Great Diamond.
Also, mobilisation has started for140 houses for young professionals at Prospect while 100 of 200 houses have been completed at Providence.
As it relates to infrastructural works, Croal some $7 billion is currently being spent on first phase infrastructural works to allow for the opening up of new communities.
