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Friday, February 28, 2025

Farley vows to finish Friendship Connector Road

by

205 days ago
20240807
THA Chief Secretary Farley  Augustine

THA Chief Secretary Farley Augustine

To­ba­go Cor­re­spon­dent

Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine has pledged to ex­plore every le­gal op­tion to en­sure the com­ple­tion of the Friend­ship Con­nec­tor Road project.

Speak­ing at the com­mis­sion­ing of part of the project yes­ter­day, Au­gus­tine said, “Yes we know the chal­lenge with the court mat­ter, but we will find a le­gal way to com­plete this ex­er­cise in a time­ly man­ner.

“But, I pledge to you that this road would be com­plet­ed be­fore that air­port (ANR Robin­son In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port ex­pan­sion project) is com­plet­ed.”

Yes­ter­day, the THA com­mis­sioned the James Big­gart Round­about, Win­ston Mur­ray Boule­vard, Dr Jef­fer­son David­son Round­about and Pamela Nicholas Boule­vard.

The $70 mil­lion project in­cludes the con­struc­tion of a 2.5-kilo­me­tre, flex­i­ble-pave­ment, sin­gle-car­riage­way road; grad­ing, bridge con­struc­tion and cul­vert drain in­stal­la­tion.

Since the be­gin­ning of the project, there have been sev­er­al le­gal hur­dles.

Ear­ly in the project’s de­vel­op­ment last year, the En­vi­ron­men­tal Man­age­ment Agency (EMA) filed the first court case against the de­vel­op­ment for lack­ing the nec­es­sary ap­provals from the THA.

Ini­tial­ly, the court grant­ed the EMA an in­junc­tion to halt road con­struc­tion, but it was lat­er lift­ed, and a CEC was grant­ed, prompt­ing the THA to get the nec­es­sary re­quire­ments.

Then on Feb­ru­ary 28, Derek Hearn of Mill House 2, Friend­ship Es­tate, ob­tained an in­junc­tion, which halt­ed con­struc­tion on the road con­nect­ing Cove Road to Store Bay Lo­cal Road.

Hearn’s case ar­gued that the THA failed to pro­vide no­tice or con­sult with af­fect­ed par­ties and breached the Land Ac­qui­si­tion Act.

The THA claimed that the es­tate had been ac­quired through com­pul­so­ry ac­qui­si­tion in 2009 and that the project did not re­quire ad­di­tion­al plan­ning per­mis­sion. 

How­ev­er, the in­junc­tion was lat­er lift­ed on March 19, with the agree­ment that no fur­ther work would oc­cur on Hearn’s land un­til a fi­nal court de­ci­sion was reached. 

In April, the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) faced a third in­junc­tion from Ray Shas­tri Ram­per­sad and Sav­it­ri Ram­per­sad.

The Ram­per­sads, rep­re­sent­ed by Anand Ram­lo­gan, SC, were grant­ed an in­ter­im in­junc­tion to pre­vent the THA from en­ter­ing and us­ing their Kil­gwyn Es­tate prop­er­ty.

The com­plainants al­leged that the THA un­law­ful­ly en­tered their land be­tween De­cem­ber 2023 and Jan­u­ary 2024, caus­ing dam­age and de­struc­tion to their prop­er­ty. The Ram­per­sads are seek­ing dam­ages for this al­leged tres­pass.

This was the third in­junc­tion against the project in un­der a year.

Dur­ing the com­mis­sion­ing cer­e­mo­ny, Sec­re­tary for the Di­vi­sion of In­fra­struc­ture, Quar­ries and Ur­ban De­vel­op­ment Trevor James lament­ed that the next hear­ing for this case was sched­uled for 2025.

De­spite these chal­lenges, Au­gus­tine said he was con­fi­dent the project would be com­plet­ed, dis­miss­ing the le­gal set­backs as ob­sta­cles that would not de­ter the road’s progress.


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