A $10 mil­lion pro­pos­al to con­struct a new fire sta­tion in San Juan has been put for­ward by the San Juan Busi­ness As­so­ci­a­tion, which is warn­ing that the dis­trict is op­er­at­ing with­out ad­e­quate fire pro­tec­tion fol­low­ing the re­moval of its East­ern Main Road fire sta­tion more than a year ago.

The as­so­ci­a­tion said San Juan has been with­out a fire sta­tion for over a year, leav­ing one of the coun­try’s busiest com­mer­cial cor­ri­dors ex­posed to se­ri­ous risk, with emer­gency re­sponse times now de­pen­dent on sta­tions in San­ta Cruz, Mor­vant and Port-of-Spain.

As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent Abrahim Ali, speak­ing at a me­dia con­fer­ence at the Hi­malayan Club in Barataria yes­ter­day, said the sit­u­a­tion is crit­i­cal and re­quires im­me­di­ate in­ter­ven­tion.