Rad­hi­ca De Sil­va

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

San­i­ta­tion crews have moved in­to La­dy Hailes Av­enue, San Fer­nan­do to clean up an il­le­gal dump­site near the old Min­istry of Works Build­ing.

Even though the gov­ern­ment has al­lo­cat­ed over $1.5 bil­lion for the beau­ti­fi­ca­tion and re­de­vel­op­ment of the San Fer­nan­do Wa­ter­front, peo­ple have been com­ing to the site to dump house­hold and in­dus­tri­al waste.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia, San Fer­nan­do May­or Robert Par­ris said he was un­aware of the dump­ing even though it was oc­cur­ring in broad day­light. He said it was on­ly af­ter CNC3 cam­era­man Ivan Toolsie in­formed him of the sit­u­a­tion that he re­alised what was tak­ing place.

"All re­sources will be di­vert­ed to­day to clean the area. Un­for­tu­nate­ly, we have peo­ple who don't care about the clean­li­ness of our sur­round­ings. We are kind­ly ask­ing the per­sons who have been do­ing this to please stop. The MP for the area has asked me to put no dump­ing signs af­ter our ex­er­cise to clean the area is com­plet­ed," Par­ris said.

He added," I will ask the Coun­cil­lor for the area if the land is avail­able for him to per­haps do a beau­ti­fi­ca­tion of the area, sim­i­lar to what was done at the Pleas­antville Hol­lows."

Guardian Me­dia was told that the dump­ing start­ed two months ago. A woman who lives on the dump­site said ve­hi­cles come four times week­ly to dump waste.