East Demerara centralised mechanic shops, parking lots to ease congestion

Last Updated on Saturday, 5 July 2025, 23:10 by Writer

Vehicle workshops and similar businesses on the East Coast Demerara would soon have to relocate to a centralised area and parking lots would be developed for trucks and other vehicles that are congesting streets and roads in villages, President Irfaan Ali announced Friday night.

In response to numerous complaints by villagers that their “quality of life” was being affected by the work of mechanic, spray painting and machining shops, he said his government has decided to allocate lands for those businesses that provide jobs to be relocated. “So we have decided that on the East Coast, for example, we will be developing 230 acre plots so that we can move all of these facilities to one area where we can give them efficient service like electricity, water, and then the community can have a more comfortable life,” he said at the opening of the Enmore Regional Hospital.

The GY$6.6 billion hospital is the second of six such hospitals being built by the Chinese company, Sinopharm, and opening across Guyana until late August, 2025. “This hospital is part of a larger vision, a vision of a Guyana where every child, every mother, every elder, every patient, regardless of their income or their address, has access to high quality, modern, responsive and people-centred health care, a vision where health care is no longer a privilege but a right fulfilled,” Dr Ali said.

The President sought to assure owners of the various workshops that government would invest in roads to connect them to the centralised location.

He also said government would be building parking lots to accommodate heavy duty vehicles, excavators and trucks that are “blocking up” parapets, roads and entrances. “So we are building public parking lots with security, with lighting, so that we can have these facilities leased out. So we remove all of these heavy duty equipment and put them in a safe location so it brings greater comfort,” he said. Dr Ali said the centralised location of workshops and public parking lots would improve quality of life “because quality of life matters to people.”