The Tribune

By Morgan Adderley

Tribune Staff Reporter

madderley@tribunemedia.net

WORKS Minister Desmond Bannister is promising efficient, holistic and long-term solutions to the large number of potholes and poor quality roads on New Providence.

Mr Bannister has also asserted that utility companies must pay for the paving of any future roads they dig up.

The epidemic of potholes on New Providence has been the subject of public outcry in recent weeks, as heavy rain has aggravated the already prolific issue.

“The potholes that are there have been appearing in the same places at the same time of year for many, many, many years,” Mr Bannister said.

“The problem has been that we’ve had quick, temporary solutions rather than holistically looking at them and dealing with them appropriately. There have been several problems.

“First of all, there are a number of issues where we have — for example we have utilities that have been cutting into roads and have not been restoring them promptly. That has caused a lot of the problems.

“The other issue has been that they have not been fixing those potholes properly. The third issue is that… some of those potholes, because of the nature of our islands, are actually underground caves. They’re not just potholes.”

Mr Bannister continued: “And so every time we have potholes, we have to actually send engineers out there. Engineers look at it, and they determine the nature of the hole, and then they determine how to deal with it.

“And many cases, there are cases where there’s a danger of it caving in. So the engineers have to deal with it appropriately. And what we’ve been doing, we’ve been sending the engineers out, they’ve been looking at them. So for example, (on Monday), based on the engineer’s report we would have three crews out dealing with potholes.”

When asked by The Tribune if crews have been focusing on any particular area, Mr Bannister said: “No, they’ve been all over the island. And they will continue to be out there. But they have a large amount of work to do, for the reasons I indicated.

“First, they have not been dealt with properly in the past, and secondly that these utilities have gone and in many cases caused the challenges. So what I have done, I have started to convey, and as of last week, I have convened a weekly meeting with utilities.

“Every Monday morning I’ve started to meet with utilities. I’m starting a paving exercise where we’re going to be paving the roads in New Providence and doing a proper job, and we’ve indicated to utilities that they are going to have the opportunity to tell us if they have any work to do on those roads.

“Because once we pave the roads, and we pave them properly…we are not going to have the utilities dig them up. If utilities dig up the roads, we’re going to make them pay for the whole road to fix it.

“Because we need quality roads in New Providence…But we need the process to be followed properly. Secondly, the engineers have been going out to potholes and they’ve been looking at all of the potholes properly.

“They’ve been making assessments, and once they’ve made their assessments, then the crews come behind them, and they do the work and they fill them in properly so that those potholes are not going to open up at the next rain. The work that they do, we expect to last a long time.”

The proliferation of potholes is a pervasive, nationwide issue, extending beyond New Providence. In February 2017, Spanish Wells, Eleuthera Chief Councillor Robert Roberts wrote a lengthy letter to The Tribune detailing the conditions of roads on the island.

He said: “Roads? Many of the roads are filled with potholes. There are several that are past the point of patching and need to be rebuilt. Most of the roads are starting to show their age as they were redone 25 years ago, the lack of a constant supply of perma-patch contributes to the deterioration. The abutment is continually breaking through.”

For months in 2016, The Tribune’s “Fix My Street” campaign highlighted scores of potholes and unrepaired road surfaces on behalf of frustrated motorists.