By Brighton Resident
Is this right? A couple of weeks ago, iWitness News published an article about two residents’ homes being flooded due to poor drainage, and the authorities ignored the residents’ concerns. The video has over 16,000 views, so it is not something people find uninteresting. Shortly after, there was an article about the road being patched because of the CELAC Summit. One of the readers commented on the damage the water does to the road when there is poor drainage. Lo and behold, a week later, a Calliaqua resident raised concerns about drains and other infrastructure, and rightly so.
I have seen the emphasis placed on large infrastructure projects, yet drains are constantly neglected. I read there is good leadership, but forgive me for asking, where? Why should residents have to turn to iWitness News to raise their concerns? Why don’t these leaders know what is happening in the area they represent? Why don’t they engage with the community? Why are authorities telling residents they should fix the issues themselves when it is not their responsibility? The drain in Brighton runs across a road. The road and the drain are not the resident’s responsibility. Why do the authorities expect the resident to dig up a road, install a drain and repair the road again?
The authorities said someone from planning would be coming out to see about the drain in Brighton, and a surveyor needed to check boundaries before the work was done. Neither of these things put a strain on the government’s resources, yet they have not been done. This is not right. I am neither ULP nor NDP, so I have no dog in that fight. What I can say is I am not blind. Things need to change. We need some leaders and managers who will not treat people with scorn. We need a better drainage system and a functional planning and BRAGSA department. People are fed up.
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