ADELPHI, St James — Pleased with how roads in his St James East Central constituency have held up after being repaired with concrete, Member of Parliament (MP) Edmund Bartlett wants the material used on more road projects.

“On the 24th [of October], I’m bringing our friends from the cement company, who have just completed my Paisley Bottom Road, which is an example of what good concrete roads can look like. Paisley will never have a problem again when it rains for the people to get down there because of what has been done there,” Bartlett said during the official opening of Adelphi Health Centre in his constituency on Thursday.

“What we want to ask them to do is to…concrete off Fording; because you know the problem,” he said.

“Every time that I fix Fording, the next shower of rain comes [and repairs are needed again]. And it’s not because of poor construction. It’s just because of the nature of the topography of the place and the fact that the mountain is there and then the river runs next to it and then the full vegetation is there. When all of that humus drops on the asphalt, it deteriorates the area and causes problems. So, when concrete is there, then we are satisfied that it will be kept,” Bartlett added.

He said there are also plans to do work on Cedar Hill road.

The MP posited that, going forward, studies will have to be done on how the land has changed over time and determine what adjustments need to be made. His comments came within the context of an update on planned or ongoing road rehabilitation work in St James East Central.

He reminded residents that the constituency is set to benefit from a multimillion-dollar effort to repair several of its roads. Among them is the main road that bypasses the health centre and connects St James to Trelawny.

“We have a full allocation of half a billion Jamaican dollars to deal with the roads within our area,” Bartlett said.

“This main road from Chelsea to Hampden, we have $200 million to ensure that it is properly serviceable,” added Bartlett as he pointed out that much more money would be needed to completely repair the road.

“It really will cost a billion plus to give it the development that we want. For now we are going to be doing extensive sheet patching to enable serviceable areas across every element of the road from here to Hampden,” explained the MP.

Bartlett also assured residents that work will be done under the Shared Prosperity through Accelerated Improvement to our Road Network (SPARK) programme and other initiatives.

“RADA (Rural Agricultural Development Authority) is also providing about $60 million for four roads in the area and, of course, SPARK. We have $150 million and the SPARK roads are going to begin during this period leading up to Christmas,” he said.

“We are doing a fullscale patching of the Kent to Adelphi road and, of course, we have allocated resources under REACH for Somerton,” he said, adding that he is keeping an eye on the weather which will impact the work.

“We hear our weather man, our meteorologist, saying that perhaps we may see the end of the adverse weather situations, hopefully after this weekend. Let’s hope for that so that we can ensure that the repairs will continue unabated throughout the period and to have all our roads here done properly,” said Bartlett.