Sascha Wil­son

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­son@guardain.co.tt

Mem­bers of the Hat­ters Steel Or­ches­tra are com­plain­ing that four years af­ter they were dis­placed to fa­cil­i­tate the La­dy Hailes Av­enue Widen­ing project, they are still with­out a prop­er home.

Speak­ing with re­porters on Wednes­day, hat­ters chair­man With­field Weekes claimed over the years there has been a lack of com­mu­ni­ca­tion and con­sul­ta­tion from UDe­COTT, the project man­ag­er, re­gard­ing re­fur­bish­ment works at their pa­n­yard.

He said be­fore they moved out of the pa­n­yard in Em­ba­cadere, the fence was com­pro­mised due to the con­struc­tion works as part of the project, and thieves stole their tools and equip­ment.

They re­lo­cat­ed to a build­ing at Chancery Lane in 2021 and then be­gan rent­ing an­oth­er build­ing.

Since Jan­u­ary, how­ev­er, Weekes said they have been op­er­at­ing un­der two tents at the for­mer Min­istry of Works and Trans­port build­ing at Steve Ar­cai­ba Street in San Fer­nan­do.

He com­plained, “We were giv­en as­sur­ance that the place would have been re­built some­where down in 2021. We went along be­cause we are proud San Fer­nan­di­ans and every­thing for the de­vel­op­ment of San Fer­nan­do, es­pe­cial­ly Broad­way, be­cause we are all from that area. We want to see that progress. So far, the road has been widened, things are hap­pen­ing but we are still left in the dark be­cause things are not hap­pen­ing for us.”

He said they had writ­ten sev­er­al let­ters to UDe­COTT and on­ly got two re­spons­es.

“And we were promised that when the project and the fi­nal plan has been com­plet­ed, we would have seen a copy of it so that we could meet with UDe­COTT and dis­cuss what we want­ed in the plan and come to some kind of mu­tu­al agree­ment and un­der­stand­ing as to how this thing should be done.”

How­ev­er, Weekes said works at their pa­n­yard com­menced with­out their in­put, and they had to in­ter­vene to halt the con­struc­tion of a stage be­cause it would have tak­en up too much space.

“What they were do­ing, if they had al­lowed it to con­tin­ue it would not have even been suf­fi­cient for a pan around neck.”

Weekes said on Tues­day they met with UDe­COTT of­fi­cials and dis­cussed re­fur­bish­ment works on the pa­n­yard, but he be­lieves this was on­ly done be­cause they got wind that he was go­ing to the me­dia.

“So we are hop­ing now that every­thing go­ing for­ward we’ll be in­formed of what their plans are,” he said.

Due to the cur­rent ac­com­mo­da­tion, he said their pans were rust­ing and their plans to up­grade their band from a medi­um to large band have been put on hold.

He is hop­ing, how­ev­er, that con­sid­er­a­tion be giv­en to al­low­ing them to re­main per­ma­nent­ly at the com­pound they were cur­rent­ly oc­cu­py­ing, as it has more space, is in a more se­cure area and could ac­com­mo­date small busi­ness­es.

Weekes said the stig­ma as­so­ci­at­ed with Em­ba­cadere, where their pa­n­yard is lo­cat­ed, is al­so ham­per­ing their op­por­tu­ni­ties to col­lab­o­rate with schools and at­tract new mem­bers due to se­cu­ri­ty con­cerns.

In re­sponse, how­ev­er, UDe­COTT claimed it has been con­tin­u­ous­ly com­mu­ni­cat­ing with the Hat­ter’s Steel Or­ches­tra, specif­i­cal­ly, Weekes, from the com­mence­ment of the project.

“The Hat­ters team of rep­re­sen­ta­tives has been di­rect­ly in­volved in the de­sign, which they them­selves ap­proved and con­tin­ue to make fre­quent vis­its to the site, dur­ing which, they are up­dat­ed with in­for­ma­tion re­gard­ing the progress of works,” UDe­COTT said.

UDe­COTT not­ed that dur­ing a site vis­it on Tues­day, Hat­ter’s mem­bers re­quest­ed ad­di­tion­al changes.

Re­gard­ing their re­quest to be giv­en per­ma­nent ac­com­mo­da­tion at the cur­rent site, UDe­COTT stat­ed that the mem­bers were told the is­sue of land space and re­lo­ca­tion is not un­der its re­mit, and re­mind­ed that the plot of land they are cur­rent­ly oc­cu­py­ing was tem­porar­i­ly as­signed to fa­cil­i­tate the works and that this par­cel of land be­longs to the HDC and is ear­marked for hous­ing de­vel­op­ment.

UDe­cott added, “It should be em­pha­sised that UDe­COTT of­fered to as­sist Hat­ters with up­grade works for its fa­cil­i­ty giv­en the dire state of its com­pound and fa­cil­i­ty at that time. UDe­COTT took on the up­grade of the Hat­ters Pan Yard as one of its CSR (cor­po­rate so­cial re­spon­si­bil­i­ty) ini­tia­tives, giv­en that the man­date to de­vel­op the San Fer­nan­do Wa­ter­front was un­der UDe­COTT’s purview.”

The La­dy Hailes works were part of the re­de­vel­op­ment project.