Resh­ma Ra­goonath

Sev­en­teen Clax­ton Bay fam­i­lies fac­ing re­lo­ca­tion staged protest ac­tion yes­ter­day call­ing on Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar to help save their homes. Yes­ter­day, the fam­i­lies as­sem­bled at Hill­top Dri­ve, Macaulay Road, Clax­ton Bay where they waved plac­ards and ap­pealed for the Prime Min­is­ter's in­ter­ven­tion. The fam­i­lies have un­til to­day to sign an agree­ment with the Land Set­tle­ment Agency (LSA) to move.

How­ev­er, they are claim­ing that LSA was treat­ing them un­fair­ly and forc­ing them to move even though they were grant­ed the pro­tec­tion of cer­tifi­cates of com­fort. But LSA Chair­man Dr Allen Sam­my de­nied this. He said res­i­dents were be­ing treat­ed fair­ly. Sam­my said the High­ways Di­vi­sion no­ti­fied the LSA that sev­er­al of the res­i­dents were re­sid­ing on re­serve lands and had to be moved. He said he had been meet­ing with the fam­i­lies, ten of which have agreed to re­lo­cate to Mil­ton. He said the LSA was of­fer­ing as­sis­tance for the res­i­dents to ac­cess the $15,000 Home Im­prove­ment Grant. In ad­di­tion, he said, LSA was of­fer­ing to con­struct a 20x20 foun­da­tion to build their homes.