AN­NA-LISA PAUL

Se­nior Re­porter

an­nal­isa.paul@guardian.co.tt

Days af­ter erect­ing a se­cu­ri­ty guard booth at the en­trance to Bam­boo #2, Val­sayn, and be­ing in­struct­ed to de­mol­ish it by the Tu­na­puna Pi­ar­co Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion (TPRC) with­in sev­en days, the Bam­boo #2 Com­mu­ni­ty Coun­cil has apol­o­gised for the ap­proach it took in erect­ing the booth.

It has now promised to write to the rel­e­vant au­thor­i­ties be­fore the end of the week to se­cure the nec­es­sary ap­provals.

Coun­cil pres­i­dent Je­re­my Naipaul yes­ter­day said they in­tend­ed to sub­mit let­ters to the TPRC, the Town and Coun­try Plan­ning Di­vi­sion, the Com­mis­sion­er of State Lands, and the St Joseph Po­lice Sta­tion.
In ad­di­tion, let­ters will al­so be for­ward­ed to the Min­istry of Pub­lic Util­i­ties, the Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty (WASA), the T&T Elec­tric­i­ty Com­mis­sion (T&TEC), and the re­spec­tive garbage col­lec­tion com­pa­nies op­er­at­ing in the area.

Naipaul ex­plained, “This is to no­ti­fy them that the booth will not im­pede their ac­cess to the area, nor will they have to make any re­quest be­fore en­ter­ing the area.”

On Sun­day, the coun­cil called on the TPRC to hold its hand on de­mol­ish­ing the booth.
Mem­bers of the com­mu­ni­ty said the move to ur­gent­ly and hasti­ly erect the struc­ture was a re­sult of es­ca­lat­ing crime in the area.

Naipaul ac­knowl­edged though, “The cor­po­ra­tion has a job to do.”

He added, “At cur­rent, the com­mu­ni­ty does not wish to be­come a gat­ed com­mu­ni­ty so this is on­ly a se­cu­ri­ty mea­sure.
“The first stage will be to on­ly mon­i­tor and close the bar­ri­er in the event of a crime. If that does not re­duce crime in the area, fur­ther re­vi­sions will be made and the pub­lic and rel­e­vant agen­cies will be no­ti­fied.”

The TPRC, led by chair­man Josi­ah Austin, yes­ter­day met to dis­cuss the mat­ter and he lat­er is­sued an up­date.

He told Guardian Me­dia, “The coun­cil can on­ly act when there is cor­re­spon­dence be­fore it and at this mo­ment, there is noth­ing be­fore us save some me­dia re­ports.

“It has al­ways been our ex­pressed de­sire to have dis­cus­sions with the res­i­dents to pro­vide the nec­es­sary guid­ance and en­sure that all ac­tions are in com­pli­ance with the law.

“The de­ci­sion to not pro­ceed with our pend­ing ac­tion is a de­ci­sion for the coun­cil.”

The TPRC chair­man added, “I un­der­stand that the vil­lage coun­cil has reached out to the coun­cil­lor for the area apol­o­gis­ing and stat­ing that they’re go­ing to do the right thing. We an­tic­i­pate some cor­re­spon­dence soon and we will take it from there.”