NWA, community to discuss highway project’s third leg
PORT ANTONIO, Portland — In an attempt to dispel residents’ fears of land loss as a result of the third phase of the north coast highway project, the National Works Agency has scheduled a series of meetings with members of the affected communities.
The project, which will run from Ocho Rios in St Ann to Fair Prospect, Portland is to be completed by 2006. It is the final leg in the project, which is geared towards providing a highway from Negril to Portland. The first leg, costing US$71 million, now spans the route from Montego Bay to Negril, with work ongoing on the second leg that will link Montego Bay to Ocho Rios.
Speaking recently at the Port Antonio Pier, on RJR’s Hotline programme, NWA communications manager, Vando Palmer, supplied tentative dates for community meetings that will help determine the route of the project’s third leg. These include:
* May 29 at the Port Antonio Marina and July 17 at Fair Prospect Primary School for Portland;
* In St Mary, there will be a meeting on June 10 at the Port Maria Civic Centre and June 24 at the St Mary High School in Highgate; and
* July 10, there will be a meeting at the St Theresa’s Catholic Church in Annotto Bay.
Palmer was responding to citizens’ concerns about the ongoing surveying of land, pegging of lots and signals that project managers were about to begin land acquisition.
According to Desmond Malcolm, project director for the North Coast Highway, phase three will not alter the existing routes, but the surface will be improved and widened and beauty spots highlighted.
“The survey will be done to determine exactly how much land is needed for an ideal situation where adequate shoulders are needed,” he explained. “Where you have existing buildings of importance, historic structures, commercial structures, we… will narrow the shoulders so as to allow these buildings to exist.”
The survey pegs, he stressed, did not necessarily mean that the route had been cast in stone, but merely represented the “ideal road reservation”.
“We will be involved with the communities in the next month, or two months,” he added. “They will be involved in the decision of the size of the road shoulders. Persons have nothing to fear as they will be a part of the process. They have about nine months before the project gets going.”
