Residents feeling relieved

Residents of Airy Hill, St Joseph are relieved that their long-standing concerns with the poor condition of their road are finally being addressed.

Under the Scotland District Road Rehabilitation Project, the Ministry of Transport and Works (MTW) and Infra Construction Inc. on Monday commenced a four-month long road reconstruction of the area in Airy Hill Bottom that will include the building of a new culvert, road realignment and gabion work.

The construction has been a long time coming for residents such as Nigel Applewhite, who feared that the road would collapse after several years of deterioration.

“I know the next set of rain this road would have collapsed. This road wanted doing more than six years. This water comes from all up Chimborazo and comes through the gully and Chimborazo is a good distance from here. Sometimes the rain would pass for hours and the water still coming down,” he said.

Airy Hill Bottom and the bridge connecting Coffee Gully has long been one of the areas that residents of the eastern parish have cried out needed attention, as it serves as one of the main arteries into and out of the parish.

Prior to the construction, a section of the bridge fell into Coffee Gully following a break in the integrity of the structure.

Left unattended, it became a site for the illegal dumping of washing machines, toilet seats, tyres, mattresses and bottles. With the bridge also a main passageway for commuters, residents feared that heavy traffic and periods of heavy rainfall would further weaken the structure.

When the MIDWEEK NATION visited the construction site on Monday, a small crew of Infra Construction workers was on site. With the use of a crane, they tore at parts of the road, commencing their restoration process.

For the four scheduled months of construction, the area of Airy Hill Bottom to Braggs Hill will be closed to vehicular traffic.

In a release, MTW said vehicles travelling south from Braggs Hill to Parris Hill will be diverted west at the junction of Highway 3A and Airy Hill, then right onto Sugar Hill, right onto Highway 3A, right onto Chimborazo Road until Huntes Gardens, where vehicles can turn right at Coffee Gully junction onto Highway 3 to proceed to Parris Hill.

Richard Kellman, who has travelled the road from his youth, admitted that the diversions will be an inconvenience.

“This is where you would find some people complaining because for us down in the bottom of the road, that four months of closure would hurt. It would touch my heart because it would mean [for]majority of my work that I do, I would go that way, so I would now find myself going a longer road, which will increase my gas bill,” he said.

However, he added that the inconvenience was one he could bare, given that the road would be fixed in the end.

Another resident, Jacqueline Wilkinson, lamented the long wait for relief from the poor road conditions in the parish and charged that the Government often neglected the appeals from the people of St Joseph.

“The whole of St Joseph needs help. We need proper assistance. Only a week ago, I told a lady here that if we barely have rain for two weeks the bridge in Airy Hill is in a state and will collapse. It’s only this [Monday] morning when I got up that I saw the big trucks going down. And I said it is sad now the road to close off. The only alternative we have is to go around Chimborazo,” she said.

Wilkinson said the designated roads they have to detour on were each in their own state of deterioration, and with the [earlier] closure of Lane’s Bridge, which is also under construction, it is far more challenging for commuters to enter Airy Hill.

Residents Charlotta Chase and Shirley Wood also said that the closure of Lane’s Bridge had been a bugbear, leading to an increase in traffic.

Despite this, they acknowledged that the construction of the road was a blessing.

“Really really glad it got fixed, especially when you have vehicles you got to be changing shocks regularly. We’re still in a rut but they’re getting it done, so we’re thankful,” Wood said.

Chase, who has lived in the area for generations, recalled that Airy Hill Bottom had been in a state of decline for years but the situation worsened eight years ago.

She also said the area was severely affected by indiscriminate dumping, clarifying that the residents have always fought against this issue.

“They think it’s us down here but its not us; it’s people that come here and do that. We used to clean and get the fellows to come and clean up the area where the bridge is because where a lot of rain falls, the water comes to Coffee Gully and it settles there,” she said.

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