26 streets in city to be cleaned

Mayor of Port of Spain 
Joel Martinez
Mayor of Port of Spain Joel Martinez

The Port of Spain City Corporation will restructure the Charlotte Street Route Vending Programme to uplift the city.

Mayor Joel Martinez made the announcement on Wednesday during the monthly statutory meeting of the city council.

He said the programme started in 2017, and restructuring will run from April 1 to April 17.

“This is the beautification of Port of Spain. It is (a decision) the council took at the beginning of the year last year where we decided we would clean all the streets in the city. We worked out it would take about two weeks per street and this year, if we conduct the programme properly, we can have 26 streets cleaned, and not just cleaned, but some of the damage, such as cracks, can also be repaired.”

He said there had been flaws in the programme.

“We have decided to take the time to deal with it and this week we will be dealing with Charlotte Street.

“Charlotte Street has the vending on it at this time, so we are going to take this time to restructure the vending programme. For a number of years we have tried to find ways to make it a successful event. We have had some problems over the years and we are trying now to come to a point where we can once and for all fix them,” Martinez said.

He said while the corporation was not tackling with the issue of flooding, it would use the opportunity to clean underground drains.

He also said public health inspectors would be out on the streets to deal with rodents.

“It is also an opportunity to take care of the rodent problem on Charlotte Street. The real objective is to give the street a facelift like what we did to Queen Janelle Commissiong Street, and we heard a lot of good reviews with what we did to the street, and we will start at Charlotte and extend to the other streets in the city.”

Deputy Mayor Hillan Morean said the restructuring of the programme will give businesses a chance to breathe and bring some order to the street as well.

“The focus at this time is to bring some balance and structure back to the street. We received so many complaints from stakeholders like the Belmont Taxi Drivers’ Association, the Fire Services, the TTPS, the Ministry of Works and Transport, just to name a few.

He said the corporation had realised the street had “reached rock bottom and we want to bring it up to a certain standard by shutting things down completely for a period.”

“We are allowed to do that, because we have allowed vending there as part of a socio-economic initiative. Every year we have a chance to renew Part 9 of the act.

“We are this year focusing on cleaning the streets. The police are on board and we recognise in the past the police are important for the continuance for this initiative.”

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"26 streets in city to be cleaned"

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