Two weeks for final widening phase of Manse Road
This was according to Minister for Communications and Works Hon. Mark Vanterpool during the radio programme ‘NDP Radio’ on February 20, 2012.
The previous Government – the Virgin Islands Party – had started the widening of the road from the area of the Methodist Manse to Joe’s Hill, but was unable to finish it, over what it had claimed was the disagreement of one of the landowners to give up a portion of his land for the road to be cut. The land owner had denied this, however, and had said on one of his radio programmes that he had told Government to go ahead and they would sort out compensation after.
Minister for Communications and Works Hon. Mark Vanterpool, speaking in the House of Assembly on Monday December 19, 2011, said the Manse Road widening project was listed as priority by Government and he was pleased to report that the Ministry and the landowner have been able to reach mutual grounds for the project to continue.
“We have spent the last two weeks cutting an access road into some of the properties as was the agreement with some of the land owners... So we wanted to get that out of the way so that we could start with the paving of the road... We went to the last phase of it now, starting this week, I believe the road might be closed sometime this week when they going to do the last phase of it towards the end where they are going to widen the end,” Hon. Vanterpool said on the radio programme.
The Minister further said on completion of the widening phase, Government would move quickly to pave the road to avoid dust affecting persons in the area. “I believe that the last widening phase would take two weeks and then we want to go very quickly into paving the road.”
Asked if the landowners affected were paid for the portion of land use to accommodate the widening of the road, Hon. Vanterpool said he did not know all the details about the negotiations but would be willing to make that public at any time.
Back in October the then 4th District Representative, Dr. Vincent Scatliffe had said most of the land owners, along with the residents in the area, were very interested in seeing the road widened. “So there was no money that exchanged hands for properties here. The agreement was that we just cut an access road for them,” Dr. Scatliffe had told Virgin Islands News Online.
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