Sascha Wil­son

De­spite COVID-19 re­stric­tions, res­i­dents of Chin Yuen Kee Street, Cap-de-Ville, Point Fortin, who have been cut off due to a bad­ly de­te­ri­o­rat­ed bridge, protest­ed yes­ter­day for a new bridge.

Over ten res­i­dents, armed with their plac­ards, com­plained that the un­sta­ble struc­ture is now im­pas­si­ble to ve­hic­u­lar traf­fic and any­one who cross­es risks falling in­to the Cap-de-Ville riv­er.

Com­plain­ing that 100 res­i­dents were af­fect­ed, Vhey­desh Moti­lal said the sit­u­a­tion need­ed to be ad­dressed ur­gent­ly.

While the re­cent heavy rains caused the bridge to give way, he said the struc­ture had been de­te­ri­o­rat­ing for more than a year.

“As you can see, the bridge ba­si­cal­ly, to­tal­ly gone now, ac­cess is im­pos­si­ble,” Moti­lal said.

Apart from hav­ing no ac­cess, he said, if the en­tire struc­ture col­lapsed in­to the riv­er, it would block the wa­ter­way.

“We need a prop­er struc­ture put in place as soon as pos­si­ble,” he said.

Moti­lal said they had made sev­er­al com­plaints but were told that gov­ern­ment funds were low and noth­ing was ever done.

“At the end of day, yes it is a mul­ti-mil­lion project, but at the end of it all this is an emer­gency sit­u­a­tion. How are we get­ting back and forth? We sup­port­ed you guys, min­is­ters please as­sist us.”

Josephine Low­ell said res­i­dents were now in a fright­en­ing sit­u­a­tion.

She said, “I can­not send chil­dren to the par­lour be­cause of the con­di­tion of the bridge. They can’t cross the bridge be­cause it is dan­ger­ous. It is a haz­ard. If they fall they can drown.”

Coun­cil­lor Shankar Teelucks­ingh said the cor­po­ra­tion’s coun­ty su­per­vi­sor, road of­fi­cer and Dis­as­ter Man­age­ment Unit vis­it­ed yes­ter­day and have made a re­quest to Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ter Kaz­im Ho­sein and the per­ma­nent sec­re­tary to ac­cess a bai­ley bridge.

Point Fortin MP Kennedy Richards Jr said he con­tact­ed the min­is­ter, who said a team would be dis­patched to as­sess the sit­u­a­tion and then a de­ci­sion would be tak­en to ei­ther re­pair the bridge or con­struct an­oth­er one.

“I am not too cer­tain how much it would cost, but I know it is quite a big bridge and it would cost a sub­stan­tial amount to get done,” Richards said.

While he has been try­ing to get the mat­ter ad­dressed for some time, he said, the funds were not avail­able to have the bridge re­paired soon­er.