Chester Sam­bra­no

News­gath­er­ing Ed­i­tor

chester.sam­bra­no@guardian.co.tt

A Bel­mont woman is call­ing for ur­gent in­ter­ven­tion af­ter part of a re­tain­ing wall and road­way col­lapsed on­to her prop­er­ty ear­li­er this year, leav­ing her un­able to dri­ve in­to her yard and strug­gling with dai­ly ac­cess.

Cam­lar McLeod, who lives along St Fran­cois Val­ley Road, said the col­lapse hap­pened on Jan­u­ary 22 fol­low­ing sev­er­al days of heavy rain­fall.

“The wall that was hold­ing up the yard came down, the road came down in­to the yard, dam­ag­ing the walls of my garage and three wa­ter tanks and caus­ing a prob­lem with the wa­ter pump,” she said.

She said the im­pact of the col­lapse has left her prop­er­ty in dis­ar­ray and af­fect­ed every­day life.

McLeod said her slid­ing gate can no longer open, forc­ing her to park her ve­hi­cle on the road­way since the in­ci­dent.

She said the prob­lem was not new and point­ed to signs of struc­tur­al weak­ness that date back sev­er­al years.

Ac­cord­ing to her, cracks first ap­peared around 2014, prompt­ing re­peat­ed re­ports to the re­gion­al cor­po­ra­tion.

McLeod said tem­po­rary re­pairs were car­ried out, but they did not last.

She al­so crit­i­cised the lack of fol­low-up af­ter the col­lapse, say­ing that al­though po­lit­i­cal rep­re­sen­ta­tives vis­it­ed dur­ing the elec­tion pe­ri­od and made promis­es, no mean­ing­ful ac­tion has fol­lowed.

McLeod said she has al­so raised the mat­ter with the of­fice of Min­is­ter Jear­lean John and was told the sit­u­a­tion is a pri­or­i­ty, but work de­pends on the avail­abil­i­ty of funds.

“All I’m hear­ing now is that when­ev­er mon­ey is avail­able, we know it’s a pri­or­i­ty,” she said.

She said the sit­u­a­tion has made even ba­sic move­ment dif­fi­cult due to her age and lim­it­ed mo­bil­i­ty, forc­ing her to walk from the road­way in­to her home and re­ly on as­sis­tance for gro­ceries.

She said she fears fur­ther col­lapse dur­ing heavy rain, warn­ing that soil con­tin­ues to give way be­neath the road­way.

“If heavy rain were to come this sea­son, that whole thing will come down. Cars will come down in the yard,” she said.

Guardian Me­dia has since reached out to the San Juan Laven­tille Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion (SJL­RC) and the Min­istry of Works and In­fra­struc­ture re­gard­ing the is­sue.

SJL­RC chair­man Richard Wal­cott promised to in­ves­ti­gate the mat­ter. Mean­while, Min­is­ter of Works and In­fra­struc­ture Jear­lean John said St Fran­cois Val­ley Road does not fall un­der the High­ways Di­vi­sion.

She said the mat­ter was re­ferred to the Cor­po­ra­tion and they need funds to ad­dress the mat­ter.