Grants Pen feels highway jitters

As the work on the Southern Coastal Highway Improvement Project intensifies, residents of Grants Pen in St Thomas are pleading that authorities include a slip road to get them easy access to their community which is set to be bypassed.

Grants Pen, a small community, is bordered on the eastern side by the more developed Albion, where the four-lane highway now under construction will end. According to the residents, when the highway is completed, they will have to travel at least 400 metres in order to access their community.

"There is supposed to be a way in and a way out. It's not supposed to be a way out down there so weh we affi go ketch it fi go pon the highway. Not supposed to be that way. We live here, we have to defend our community and our place. The bread van fi pass go so and turn back fi serve we? The biscuit van, the juice van, how it go? Dem a guh pass and seh dem caah badda fi turn back. It is a quarter-mile out, if not more," said 59-year-old Verona Bryan.

The residents, while happy for the construction of the highway, are worried that their community could suffer. Bryan said that a meeting was held in the community last month, which involved representatives of the National Works Agency (NWA), China Harbour Engineering Company - who are the contractors - and residents. She said that they were told that the creation of the access road at the entrance to the community would mean additional expense.

The highway's initial alignment plans, which were approved in 2018, had the highway following the existing main road past Grants Pen. However, following an amendment in 2020, the highway is being built on an elevated section that bypasses a section of the existing main road at the entrance to the community.

David Bowen, another Grants Pen resident, said that there are safety concerns.

"I don't think it right fi yuh just come block the community off. Me nuh have a vehicle so me affi guh walk. Some of the school pickney affi leave home like from 5:30 in the mawning fi get out there. A crocodile pond round deh so, and suppose we as parents seh we tired so we can't get fi wake up and follow the kids to the bus stop, so you seh you send your kids to school but the teacher seh him nuh reach school. Only then you get fi find out crocodile eat the kid. My house right up there, and when me come out and look, me certain seh my kid is on the bus, but when him fi walk 400 metres, me nuh sure bout it," Bowen said.

The 49-year-old alleged that the culverts are placed in the direction of the community, and reasoned that in the event of heavy rains, the community could be flooded.

"Weh happen right deh so going kill the community because we depend on passers-by to buy a beer, fish or anything. If the highway running above the community, and dem can't give us a run-off into the community, dem nuh really acknowledge us then as a community," he said.

Efforts to contact Stephen Shaw, communications manager at the NWA, proved futile yesterday.