Bournes Road residents worry over effects of $m construction

FOR YET ANOTHER YEAR, residents of Ross Lands, Bournes Road, St James are complaining of landslips and flooding in their area. Residents say that whenever rain falls, a deluge of water flows downhill to their street, stripping away precious top soil and flooding yards and homes.

Noting that the issues began only two years ago, residents are placing the blame squarely on the shoulders of The View development – a million-dollar real estate development in Vieux Fort, Bournes Road, which, according to residents, stripped the environment of the flora to retain the soil, and did not put any infrastructure in place to ensure that run-off water would not affect residents.

One resident, who did not wish to be named, but said she had lived in the area for 56 years, said the water flows heavily down the hill, down the stairs of her two-storey home and through her living room. The water gets so bad that she had to build a drain in her living room.

“When rain falls it looks like it is a sea coming down the stairs. All the water comes down into our house. All inside the bedroom we get flooding. We had to make a channel to direct the water out the house. We had to make a pathway using blocks inside my house and run it straight across my wall.

“All they are doing is digging and banking, and I am not seeing any walls or infrastructure,” the resident said.

Raniel Browne, a resident in the area for 45 years, told Newsday the areas did get run-off water from before, but it was manageable because the drains which were constructed were able to redirect it.

But when construction began on The View, water, sand, silt and debris were no longer being held together by the flora. The soil itself, which was identified as shale, is also prone to slippage.

“The right procedure was not followed in terms of infrastructure,” Browne said. “You are supposed to put in drains before you start to build the buildings. Plus they stripped the trees. So you have all the surface runoff plus runoff coming from the buildings and nowhere for it to go.”

Browne’s mother 76-year-old Hilary Ann Browne told Newsday that when consultation for the building was done about two years ago, residents were promised that the development would enhance the properties of the homeowners there. But since construction began they have had nothing but bad experiences.

“He said that he would put a retention pond and build a water system and a road. He also promised to put up a wire mesh to contain the mud when rain falls. From the time they started construction there was dust everywhere – everywhere was brown. My daughter, 46, began getting blisters from head to toe. They said it wasn’t because of the dust from construction, it was Saharan dust.”

“With the first rain that came down, the wire mesh that they promised to put up burst and the water crossed the street and ended up in people’s homes.”

In September last year, water flooded the area, causing a virtual river to run down Ross Lands Street despite the three retention ponds that were built to contain the runoff water.

Officials from Home Solutions, the contractors for the development, explained last year that the retention ponds were temporarily overwhelmed.