The road in Twenty Hill that residents say trucks going to and from a quarry in the area has made worse, would need “detailed assessment”.
“The unpaved road at Twenty Hill will need detailed assessment to provide for the adequate carriageway, the drainage and retaining walls,” Minister of Works, Montgomery Daniel told Parliament on Nov. 23.
He was responding to a question from Nigel “Nature” Stephenson, MP for South Leeward, where Twenty Hill is located.
Stephenson had told the national assembly that several huge trucks transport gravel from the quarry at Twenty Hill to Sandals Resort at Buccament Bay daily.
The MP said:
“The sheer weight of these trucks has caused serious damage to the unpaved road at Twenty Hill and along the Penniston main road. A part of the road especially in the area close to the Du Bois bus stop has collapsed.”
He asked the minister to say when those roads would be repaired.
Daniel pointed to other road works in the Penniston-Dubois area.
“Presently, there is a contractor who’s carrying on works in three areas in the Dubois, Number 8 area and this work will see the improvements to the collapsed area just after the Dubois bus stop being repaired,” he said.
The minister said the work by the contractor would also see the repair of the collapsed drain and a few feet from the bridge that has been affected and the roadway.
“The work would also see the construction of a retaining wall and repair the concrete road surface in Number 8,” Daniel told Parliament, using the other name for Penniston.
He said another contractor had just completed some 700 feet of drain and road works near the Penniston Community Centre.
“As to the area in Twenty Hill, of course, there are tremendous amount of works going on and that South Leeward constituency particularly where the new hotel is being built, and one would just not want to go onto such road to begin repairs,” Daniel told Parliament.
“But of course, as I indicated, that there will be a detailed assessment for this road and it will be done shortly,” he said.
Recently, residents of Twenty Hill complained to iWitness News about the operation of the quarry and the impact of the trucking associated with it on the road and their properties.