The Prime Min­is­ter’s Of­fice is giv­ing East Port-of-Spain a facelift with a planned new Pic­cadil­ly Street Re­gen­er­a­tion project start­ing month-end.

This will cre­ate jobs for peo­ple in the area, Hous­ing Min­is­ter Ed­mund Dil­lon al­so said af­ter Cab­i­net yes­ter­day. He said Cab­i­net ap­proved the project, which falls with­in the PM’s Of­fice and the Ur­ban De­vel­op­ment Com­pa­ny of T&T (Ude­cott).

Dil­lon ex­plained, “It’s part of a wider project, the Gov­ern­ment hav­ing recog­nised there’s a need to do some­thing in East Port-of-Spain and the city of Port-of-Spain, as the city, al­so is ex­pe­ri­enc­ing an ur­ban de­cline, un­em­ploy­ment and oth­er is­sues that plague so­ci­ety. Gov­ern­ment has de­cid­ed there must be some mea­sure to in­crease the East Port-of-Spain di­vi­sion, es­pe­cial­ly Pic­cadil­ly Street, which is a ma­jor egress out of the city.”

He al­so said Gov­ern­ment recog­nised the need for jobs for those in the area. Phase One of the two-phase project in­cor­po­rates from Besson Street to Laven­tille Road, while phase two in­volves Laven­tille Road to Jack­son Hill.

Phase one will see the de­mo­li­tion of the old Besson Street Po­lice Sta­tion, start­ing month-end. This block will make way for a tow­er com­plex which will com­prise eco­nom­ic ac­tiv­i­ty (ground floor), res­i­den­tial (sec­ond/oth­er floors) and recre­ation­al ar­eas. A lodge and schools in the area will be in­cor­po­rat­ed in­to the plan. But Dil­lon couldn’t give the cost of the project yes­ter­day.

On an­oth­er is­sue, Works Min­is­ter Ro­han Sinanan said au­thor­i­ties are in­ves­ti­gat­ing oil sam­ples from sev­er­al ves­sels - but one in par­tic­u­lar - in re­la­tion to the Tues­day’s mar­itime oil spill at the Port of Port-of-Spain, near the Hy­att Re­gency Ho­tel. He said the oil dis­si­pat­ed in 12 hours but the source hadn’t been found up to yes­ter­day.

Sinanan added that the En­vi­ron­men­tal Man­age­ment Au­thor­i­ty, Mar­itime Ser­vices Di­vi­sion and In­sti­tute of Ma­rine Af­fairs are do­ing sam­ples from all ves­sels in the area and from the oil spill and one ves­sel was be­ing ex­am­ined close­ly.

“They’re pur­su­ing all av­enues to en­sure that the ves­sel that’s re­spon­si­ble will be held ac­count­able,” he said, adding he hoped the is­sue would be sort­ed out as soon as pos­si­ble.