SANTA CRUZ, St Elizabeth – More than two and a half years after Hurricane Ivan broke the connecting road, residents of the pineapple-growing districts of Ginger Hill and Pisgah on the fringe of The Cockpit Country in north west St Elizabeth are again hopeful that relief is on the way.

Junior Minister for Works Richard Azan assured them on Monday that after terminating a failed $21 million private contract to fix the broken road, the state-run National Works Agency (NWA), has been instructed to do the work itself and to begin immediately.

“We are going to do this job inhouse and we are ready to start immediately,” Azan told approving residents shortly after he and NWA officials visited the site of the “brukweh” in steep, hilly terrain during a steady drizzle.

Azan said that by the start of the new school year in September, the rehabilitated road should be good enough for children from Ginger Hill to cross safely to the Pisgah Primary School located on the western (Pisgah) side of the ‘brukweh’.

Concern for the safety of the children has been a major headache for residents who last week vented their frustration by padlocking the gate to the school. A treacherous, narrow foot path used by school children and adults has replaced the 20 metres of roadway which slid down the hillside in the aftermath of Ivan. A relatively new two-bedroom house -now abandoned – teeters on the edge of the “brukweh”.

Residents described how the land was constantly “slipping” and “breaking away” especially during rainfall and that at least three people had suffered fractures after falling on the slippery path. Yvonne Wallace who had a foot fracture two years ago, said it happened while she was walking her child to school early one morning.

Residents said the additional cost of taxi fare to get pineapple – their main cash crop – to market had reduced price competitiveness. “It is very difficult, right now we running a losing race,” said farmer Melodie Mathie.

Those who braved the muddy path, often with loads on their heads, in order to catch transportation to market in Santa Cruz had to carry “a second pair of shoes”, another resident, Judith Jones, told the Observer West

In response to a plea from the Councillor for the New Market Division, Ernest Hendricks (JLP), Azan said the NWA would be moving to do repairs to the lengthy, alternate road from Pisgah through Springfield – parts of which were described by Hendricks as “deplorable”.

Trees, way below the “brukweh” were pointed out to journalists as having slipped down the hillside over the past 30-odd months. Large quantities of marl – some of it compacted but much of it washed down the steep hillside with the land slippages – bore testimony to the previous, failed $21 million project.

Even as he held out hope for speedy relief, Azan and some of the residents themselves, noted that “the weather” over the next few months in an area that is renowned for persistent and heavy rain at this time of year could cause delays.

Stephen Shaw, the NWA’s head of Communications said a “gabion” retaining wall – described in layman’s terms as packed stones in wire baskets which will allow water to drain through – will be central to the renewed effort to fix the road.

Shaw said the decision for the job to be done “inhouse” followed the unsatisfactory performance of the private contractor signed up two years ago.

No figures were given on the likely cost of the new project – which has been made more difficult with the discovery of underground springs – but knowledgable observers told the Observer West that this too will run to many millions of dollars.

Choosing his words carefully, Shaw painted a picture of a tedious, complex process that led to abandonment of the initial rehabilitation project.

“The old contract was signed in 2005 but because of the nature of the breakaway, we had to do some serious due diligence in respect of what exactly we were going to be doing,” said Shaw. “We didn’t want a situation where we would build a retaining structure only to find it collapsing under the weight of the next rainfall so we spent some time looking at the geology of the area, looking at what is in this particular location and that went in to a design. The design took some time. We had to change the scope of work … now due to the change in the scope and things that went in to the design, the cost of putting up the structure went up.

“We had a contract in place (for) $21 million… Having completed this part of the work using that allotment of funds we decided to separate from the contractor… We could have proceeded with him to the next phase but we said ‘no’ because he also took quite a bit of time to do what he had to do and we were not satisfied,” Shaw said.

Azan said that having had success in repairing similar breakaways notably in Tangle River, St James, he was confident of a similar result in Ginger Hill/Pisgah.