Will Lee Road be ready for 50th VG Easter Festival?
Virgin Gorda Easter Festival 2017 will be a golden celebration for the people of the sister island as they anticipate that hundreds from around the world and other parts of the territory will be joining in the milestone celebrations.
The 2017 VG Easter Festival is slated for April 8-17, 2017.
$1.6M contract
Meanwhile, September 13, 2016 saw the signing of a $1,664,855.50 contract to effect extensive road, drainage and other works along Lee Road. Works will include clearing the land, demolishing and rebuilding concrete drains, reconstructing 650m of concrete road pavement, construction of 441m of reinforced concrete box drains, 93m of reinforced concrete swale drain, a twin HDPE pipe culvert including manholes, construction of two reinforced concrete box culverts; and fabrication of metal gratings over box drains.
The contract was signed under the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB) $15.6M loan project.
Concerns
The works will reportedly take some eight months to be completed. This immediately rings a bell in the ears of several persons on the island who are cognisant of the fact that it runs up to the period of the 50th VG Easter Festival celebrations on the island.
“Now we are used to hearing of work stoppage, this and that material shortage. What we or the minister and the contractor need to remember is that we have a major celebrations come up in about eight months from now- September to April- that’s eight months. And if you look at it, the contract being signed in September does not mean the work will immediately start. It’s my guestimation that it wouldn’t get started proper until sometime late October or early November. That takes the completion to about May-June,” opined one resident.
The community member further stated, “Yes we really welcome the works because it’s long overdue but we also have to look to coordinating so we can have both the works and the celebrations run smoothly. Some people may want to say choose one but rain do fall while sun shining, we can’t coordinate that, but our man-made activities we can coordinate.”
Another resident said, “Let’s see what happens at the end of this month.”
Another shared that she was reliably informed that the contract would take at least two weeks to be registered, however, she is confident, given the assurance by the contractor, that the works will be complete in advance of April 2017.
Works Minister optimistic
It was a concern also raised by a local reporter at the recent press briefing when Hon Vanterpool gave an optimistic response. “The expectation is that by that time, hopefully, Mr Stevens would just be cleaning up and have that ready, but we have all confidence in the contractor to have the work done within that time.”
According to Hon Vanterpool, hopefully the works would be completed before April and the road would be very usable by and for the festival. He said his government is pleased that many of the contractors doing works under the IDB programme have been doing very well, in some cases completing the projects before time. “So we want to encourage them to continue doing as well as they have been doing over the past several years.”
Creative Builders Ltd to execute works
The contract was awarded to Creative Builders Ltd., owned by Mr Anselmo Stevens who was present at the press briefing on September 13, 2016 at the Office of the Premier. Mr Stevens said his company has never before undertaken any major government project in the past. “No we just did some small petty contracts but we as a company did major works for the major development in Virgin Gorda. We did like Oil Nut Bay, Mosquito Island…this is a utility job and we did like eighty-five of their utilities which is like eight miles of roads, so a job like this is a bit similar, a bit smaller but we have the experience, we have the know-how.”
Mr Stevens said he is more than likely to have the Lee Road project completed by April 2017. He reiterated that it is his biggest project for government but not the biggest his company has ever done.
This news site reached out to the chairperson of the Virgin Gorda Festival Committee Ms Sasha D. A. Flax and the Public Relations Officer Mr Jerrell J. George, however, neither had responded up to publication time.
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