The hole dug for roadworks is creating problems for White Hill, St Andrew residents.
Residents of White Hill in St Andrew say the answer to a partially damaged road in the area is to fully replace a main they believe is worn.
When Barbados TODAY visited the area yesterday, Barbados Water Authority (BWA) workers were repairing the ruptured main. However, a significant area of the road appeared to be eroding and large cracks were also visible.
As a result of the condition of the road, residents reported that Barbados Transport Board buses were putting off passengers a distance away from the normal drop-off point in the area, causing them to walk to their homes.
“The problem is the waterworks main that got this road here so,” one resident said.
Randolph Springer, another resident, indicated that he strongly believed the “water coming from the burst main up under this road for so much years causing this erosion”.
Springer indicated that merely repairing the main was not the answer to the road’s problems.
BWA workmen in the process of repairing a burst main.
“We need a new main in place of this one. The main was burst so long that the water saturate under the earth and causing the land to slide because it is so soft.
“Because the vehicles passing and all up under the ground soft, it keep sinking all the time,” said Springer.
Meanwhile, Anderson Brathwaite stated: “This main was leaking for months and the neglect it until it break away and now fixing it. That water should never be leaking in the earth so and causing this.”
Theodore Jordan said he had seen the road damaged before, but never in such a “bad” state.
“I living down here for years and I never yet see the road in this state. The road had issues, but never yet the kind that it got now. The buses ain’t even want to come down in here, and putting off people all the way up there,” said Jordan.
BWA’s communications specialist Joy-Ann Haigh confirmed that the main was ruptured but was unable to gave the length of time, because it surfaced last weekend.
“The main was repaired today. It was shut down last night and repaired today,” she told Barbados TODAY yesterday evening.