PoS Mayor hears of walkover woes

The vendors are opposed to the 48-metre walk over that would be built by the Works and Transport Ministry and should be completed in the next by contractors Structural and Mechanical Agencies Ltd at the cost of $10 million. The walkover, the vendors complained, would land smack in the middle of some of their stalls.

Moves to build a walkover comes four years after six residents of Sea Lots were struck by a car while walking on the west bound lane of the Beetham Highway.

Of the six, three were killed including Haydee Paul, 28, and her daughters Akasha, seven, and Shakira, eight. One of the three survivors, Ryan Rampersad, was left paralysed from the waist down.

Mayor Joel Martinez yesterday said there must be disruption for progress. Martinez said he was unaware of the project because it was not discussed since he took up office in December.

Vendor Steve McClatchie, who is a wholesale vendor and occupies two stalls, said he was not opposed to a walkover, but is opposed to the location of the proposed walkover.

He said that the State has also decided that equipment used in the construction of the walkover would be housed in the market space that accommodates several booths.

“Why can’t they use the space opposite (Beetham Highway) to store their equipment,” Mc- Clatchie asked.

“We are going to take measures to relocate the affected vendors to another part of the market. Their concern is that the space is smaller. I told vendors in the case of disruption you may have to move in a space that may not be as suitable as it was before. The space that is going to be utilised now is a temporary space, but it is designed to be used by vendors to continue to operate,” Mayor Martinez said.

“Vendors are willing to compromise if the contractors can take a smaller space, so we can still have something we can work with. We really want to have the walk over, we don’t want to stop that.There are a lot of children crossing the highway and this is very risky. All we are asking is that they take up a smaller space and lodge their equipment elsewhere,” he said.

Martinez reasoned that in any growing country, an element of disruption must take place for progress to be made. “What about if a Hurricane occurs, it was unavoidable. You have to deal with it and we have to put things in place immediately.

The disruption is that they may have to store equipment, they may have to store an office.

“The walkover itself will be in the market, so therefore some space is going to be taken up. The market is going to lose some space because of some of that. But, while there is disruption, there is an opportunity to how can we house our wholesale vendors better so that they can develop,” the mayor said.