THE National Works Agency (NWA) will next month begin repairs on the nearly 400 breakaways on its main road network islandwide.

“We are looking at beginning in a few weeks, hopefully by the end of October,” the NWA’s communications and customer service manager Stephen Shaw told the Observer.

Shaw said the work, which will cost an estimated $300 million, would be undertaken under phase two of the agency’s critical retaining wall pro-gramme which has been in effect since last year.

“Funding is in place, we have invited tenders and the tenders are being evaluated so the process has started, but we have to await certain things before we begin,” Shaw told the Observer. Work, he added, would be done in all 14 parishes.

“The fact that (it was) targeting roads in all the parishes suggests that they are critical. How we look at them is that if you have less than 11 metres of roadway to travel on it is critical and it’s those that we try to target and those that…(show signs of vulnerability and are going to be severely affected if there are more heavy rains),” added Shaw.

Shaw, who said the repair programme had been set back because of the cement crisis earlier in the year, declined to give a timeline for the completion of the repairs.

“When we complete is dependent on many factors…we started phase one in February…and we have suffered significant setbacks as a result of the problem in the cement market. Significant delays have occurred because of the problems there, so I couldn’t say the programme will be completed in two or three weeks,” he said.

In the meantime, the NWA’s chief spokesman said work was continuing on some 77 retaining walls under the first phase of the programme, valued at $250 million. This sum, he said, did not include breakaways in the Buff Bay Valley in Portland where about $120 million was being spent to restore sections there.

Shaw said the retaining wall programme was expected to cost a total of $1.7 billion.