Ministry Defends Parapet Works as Residents Warn of Road Safety Risks

By Mark DaCosta- Days after deep trenches opened along grass parapets in several Georgetown communities, the Ministry of Works has finally explained itself. The works are a shoulder-improvement programme meant to firm up roadsides, ease parking pressure and improve drainage. Residents, however, say they were left in the dark, and the digging has pushed vehicles and pedestrians into the driving lanes. The central question is not whether the capital needs better roadsides. It is whether the project was planned and communicated with the people who must live alongside it.

For several days, motorists and pedestrians in Queenstown, Alberttown and other areas navigated a puzzle with no explanation. Verges / parapets that Georgetowners have long used for parking and walking were suddenly opened up, and nobody official said why. It took a post by journalist Gordon Moseley to draw the Ministry out. “Development is welcomed but it must also make sense and residents ought to be consulted,” he wrote, adding that the Works Ministry “should explain its plan.” The Ministry’s statement followed shortly afterwards, on Thursday, November 5.

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According to that statement, contracts have been awarded and work is under way in some communities. parapets will be cleared, excavated and packed with compacted crusher-run or similar aggregate. The Ministry says this will replace surfaces that turn muddy in the rains and hold water in hollows. It also argues that some verges have crept higher than the road itself, blocking runoff into the drains and worsening ponding. Reshaping them, it says, will let water move off the carriageway, while the granular material allows some seepage to replenish groundwater. The Ministry has stressed that the surfaces will stay granular, with no concrete cast.