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Minister Mike Henry touring a work area

Transport and Works Minister, Hon. Mike Henry, toured a number of Corporate Area gully work sites relative to the post-Tropical Storm Gustav Rehabilitation Programme, as well as the Barnes Gully/Port Royal Street coastal intersection in downtown Kingston, where urgent remedial work is necessary to protect the integrity of the roadway and coastline. The tour took place on June 20.

Minister Henry, accompanied by top officers from the National Work Agency (NWA), led by Chief Executive Officer, Patrick Wong and Major Projects Manager, George Knight, first visited the retaining wall and gully invert site at St. Christopher – Glengoffe in upper St. Andrew. The completed project cost amounted to $28.5 million of a revised contract sum of $31.2 million. The revision from $17 million resulted from the scope of the project being significantly widened from the original plans.

The minister expressed satisfaction with the work which was done by contractors Donaldson Enterprise Limited, and community members concurred with his view, especially in relation to the protection and convenience the work had fostered for the community, including school children who had for some time been forced to traverse the dangerous breakaway. The problem had existed to some extent for many years, but was worsened by the passage of Tropical Storm Gustav last August.

The touring party also visited the retaining wall and gully invert site at Aston Ridge Road in upper St. Andrew, where the contractor, Y. P. Seaton & Associates Company Limited has satisfactorily completed the project at a cost of $9.6 million of a revised contract sum of $10.5 million. The original contract sum was $8.4 million.

The Barnes Gully/Port Royal Street coastline intersection site was noted to be significantly damaged from encroachment by the ravaging sea water. This has completely eaten away sections of the sidewalk and is slowly compromising the integrity of sections of the roadway. Work is already under way on the Barnes Gully, but the Minister noted that additional work will be necessary at the gully’s exit point into the sea, as the inland push of the sea is fiercely competing with the water flow from the gully into the sea.

Minister Henry said he would be pushing to have the protective rock revetment formation now in place along sections of the Palisadoes strip in eastern Kingston replicated along the section of the Port Royal Street coastline between the Bank of Jamaica complex and the Rae Town fishing village. He said he would seek to determine if some funding could be diverted from the Palisadoes project to the Port Royal Street needs.