On the heels of the Prime Min­is­ter’s call to lim­it gath­er­ings to ten peo­ple or less, the Ch­aguara­mas De­vel­op­ment Au­thor­i­ty (CDA) has closed ac­cess to the penin­su­la’s ma­jor beach­es at Mac­queripe, Williams Bay and Chagville.

The an­nounce­ment al­so fol­lowed the im­me­di­ate clo­sure of the pop­u­lar Cau­ra Riv­er.

In a re­lease Thurs­day, the CDA said the move be­came nec­es­sary as it was re­port­ed that de­spite the call by Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley, the Mac­queripe Beach was crowd­ed as mem­bers of the pub­lic rushed to take ad­van­tage of the self-quar­an­tine pe­ri­od.

But this was in di­rect con­trast to mid-morn­ing checks at Cau­ra Riv­er, where the area was de­sert­ed ex­cept for a small group of CEPEP work­ers.

When Guardian Me­dia ar­rived at Pool One around 9 am, con­crete bar­ri­ers had been placed at the main ve­hic­u­lar en­trance to pre­vent mo­torists from ac­cess­ing the riv­er. It was a sim­i­lar sit­u­a­tion at Pool Two.

CEPEP work­ers Damion Phillip and Keisha Hinds said the bar­ri­ers at both pools were put down around 10.30 pm on Wednes­day.

Ex­press­ing ap­pre­ci­a­tion for the peace and qui­et yes­ter­day morn­ing, the two said they ac­tu­al­ly heard the chirp­ing birds.

Phillips, who has been liv­ing in the area for the past two years, said, “I am re­al­ly lov­ing how they blocked the roads, be­cause we used to get prob­lems with peo­ple want­i­ng to play their loud mu­sic all hours, park­ing close to our homes and you can’t sleep.

“We could get a lit­tle ease now with the mu­sic and garbage peo­ple does be leav­ing all over. We are thank­ful be­cause Ca­roni could get a lit­tle clean now.”

Hinds, who has been liv­ing in the area for the past years, said, “I feel a 100 per cent safer in here be­cause of the shut­down, there won’t be any crowds com­ing here to lime any­more.”

They said Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ter Kaz­im Ho­sein and MP Es­mond Forde vis­it­ed the area around 7 am to en­sure there were no bathers at the riv­er and praised the Gov­ern­ment’s move to of­fi­cial­ly close the riv­er, as they said it would re­duce the wa­ter pol­lu­tion and garbage of­ten left be­hind by users.

CDA of­fi­cials mean­while said their de­ci­sion was in keep­ing with the call that so­cial gath­er­ings should not ex­ceed more than ten, a re­duc­tion from 25 ini­tial­ly. It is hoped the move will be a pos­i­tive step to­wards stem­ming the spread of the virus.

The Mac­queripe, Williams Bay and Chagville beach­es are three pop­u­lar recre­ation­al sites which at­tract many beach­go­ers on a week­ly ba­sis. The CDA said it will be work­ing with the Care­nage po­lice and the Trinidad and To­ba­go De­fence Force in en­sur­ing con­tin­u­ous pa­trols with­in the Ch­aguara­mas penin­su­la.

Sim­i­lar­ly, the CDA said it is en­forc­ing its civic re­spon­si­bil­i­ty by al­so en­sur­ing that all bars, restau­rants and oth­er sim­i­lar ten­ants with­in the penin­su­la ac­cede to the new virus pro­to­col.

The CDA al­so an­nounced a sus­pen­sion of all tours and or­gan­ised ac­tiv­i­ties at its recre­ation­al parks and open spaces un­til fur­ther no­tice.

Speak­ing at yes­ter­day’s post-Cab­i­net me­dia brief­ing at the Diplo­mat­ic Cen­tre, St Ann’s, Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Stu­art Young said the Tu­na­puna/Pi­ar­co Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion al­so yes­ter­day blocked the road lead­ing to the Cau­ra Riv­er.

He warned, “This does not mean that peo­ple should park their cars on the road and trek all the way in.”

Young said he was al­so no­ti­fied by the CDA, “That they have tak­en a de­ci­sion...and they have closed pub­lic ac­cess to their beach­es.”

He com­mend­ed them as he said, “I think that is a good move in the right di­rec­tion.”

He said oth­er re­gion­al cor­po­ra­tions would “take sim­i­lar de­ter­mi­na­tions.”

Con­tact­ed af­ter­wards, how­ev­er, Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ter Kaz­im Ho­sein said he had con­tact­ed the mu­nic­i­pal cor­po­ra­tions and the 14 po­lice com­man­ders from each cor­po­ra­tion were giv­en in­struc­tions to mon­i­tor pop­u­lar beach­es and rivers across the coun­try.

“We have not tak­en a de­ci­sion to close off any­thing as yet,” Ho­sein said.