By Adrian Frater, News EditorWESTERN BUREAU:
Residents of Rosemount, in St. James, blocked the main road leading into their community Wednesday to protest the shoddy state of their roads and the "unwise manner" in which some recent repairs works were done.
The residents are claiming that instead of effecting repairs to the roads that were in the worst state, a contractor, who recently did some work in the area, spent the money in areas that were in relatively good shape.
"Dem bypass the road with the waist-deep potholes and stupidly spent the money on the roads that did not require much repairs," said Tracy-Ann Cooke, a resident of the area.
"We have roads here that vehicles cannot drive on and we have others that only some drivers will use."
To compound the problem, the residents are also contending that the few taxi-operators who are prepared to use the road during the daytime are refusing to use the roads at nights as criminal gunmen have been exploiting their inability to drive through the area at a normal speed.
"You would be surprised at the number of taxi operators who have been assaulted and robbed by gunmen," said David Smith, who claimed that street on which he lives has not been repaired in over 20 years.
GUNMEN
"When we take the taxi at nights and come on the main road, we are the ones who have to face the gunmen."
On the arrival of a strong detachment of police, the protesters said they were not seeking a confrontation but only seeking to highlight their plight as previous appeals, they said, to both their Parish Council representative, Heroy Clarke, and Member of Parliament, Dr. Horace Chang, have not produced the desired result.
"A pregnant woman also died in the area the other day as we could not find a driver who was willing to go on the street where she live because of the state of the road," said Ms. Cooke.
"If we have a problem in the area at night the police cannot come to our rescue because there is no road for them to drive on."
Efforts by The Gleaner to contact both Councillor Clarke and Tubal Brown, the Superintendent in charge of Roads and Works at the St. James Parish Council, proved futile as both were said to be out of office.
