City Hall demolishes illegal structures, cleans Regent Street drains

Last Updated on Sunday, 6 September 2015, 15:53 by GxMedia

Municipal workers were Sunday busy demolishing illegal structures such as sheds on buildings along Regent Street while vendors, volunteers and other municipal workers cleared severely clogged drains.

The operations were being supervised by Town Clerk Royston King, Chief Constable Andrew Foo and Mayor Hamilton Green.

Green said the sheds, which were attached to several buildings and protruding over the pavement, were being removed after the owners of the buildings were asked to do so. “They were given notice and we have zero tolerance on them now,” he said.

The Municipality supplied the volunteers with jerseys, caps, gloves and tools. Several of the volunteers used makeshift tools such as old fan blade covers connected to long pieces of wood to clean the gutters.

A walk along a section of Regent Street revealed that huge quantities of silt and solid waste objects such as bricks, bottles and other objects were removed from the drain and packed in bags or piled on the parapet near the drains.

Asked when the waste would be removed rather than left there for days and washed back by rain and wind into the gutters, the Mayor said arrangements have been made with trucks to collect the silt some of which have been bagged. “They are working right now. I am going to pass back to make sure they come sort it out,” he said.

Green said stallholders and building owners in the commercial district of Georgetown would be called in during on Tuesday. He said business owners would be asked to construct manholes over the drains much closer to facilitate easier cleaning.

Commercial Georgetown has over the years become one of the more flood prone areas of the city after a short duration of intense rainfall.