Ministry of Transportation & Works

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Robert Pickersgill (centre), Minister of Transport and Works, cuts the ribbon to officially open the rehabilitated Black River bridge in St Elizabeth, last Friday April 15. Looking on (from left) are Dr. Fenton Ferguson, State Minister in the Ministry of Transport and Works and Donald Buchanan, Minister of Water and Housing and Member of Parliament for the area.

Minister of State in the Ministry of Transport and Works, Dr. Fenton Ferguson has urged St. Elizabeth residents to endeavour to preserve the many authentic structures that the bread basket parish boasts, including the historic Black River Bridge.

Speaking at the recent reopening ceremony for the bridge, Dr. Ferguson noted that it was only a short while ago that Black River had been declared a "protected national heritage" by the government.

"You will notice that my ministry and the National Works Agency in line with this fact has made every effort to restore and maintain the original design of the bridge. I am very happy and pleased that the contractor, Kingston Industrial Construction Company has been able to carry out these works and to do it in a professional manner," he said.

Dr. Ferguson explained that the redevelopment of Black River was in many ways linked to the future development of the parish.

"The preservation of our heritage sites is very much a part of our overall mandate of building safe, reliable and quality roads.our core business is about roads, bridges and river training and, at this time we are at a serious cross roads because of the fact that Jamaica as a country has one of the largest road density in the world right now. We have almost 25,000 kilometres to deal with and this of course is made up of main roads, community roads and farm roads," he said.

Dr. Ferguson highlighted the fact that without a proper road network to move goods and services in a timely and efficient manner the national development would be stunted.

"The question of road and its development and the role it plays is something that we are now finally beginning to understand. Once the road network and the bridgework is improved then there is the positive spin-off to other sectors such as agriculture, tourism, commerce and how we do business," he said.
Meanwhile, Transport and Works Minister Robert Pickersgill said the newly refurbished bridge should have a life span of about 50 years.

The overall cost of the project is $23.4 million and the work included the removal and replacement of corroded steel members and troughing plates, sandblasting and painting of tension chords, joints and bolts, repairs to sidewalks and the resurfacing of the bridge deck and approaches with asphaltic concrete.

Mr. Pickersgill further explained that under the Mabey and Johnson Priority Bridge Programme, the ministry intended to spend just over £22.8 million to complete the rehabilitation of 40 bridges island wide. Some 43 bridges have been identified for replacement and two for rehabilitation.

In terms of roads in the parish, he said, government had so far spent $67.4 million on the Luana to Sandy Ground main road and an additional $5.6 million was being spent to clean and bush 154 kilometres of roadways in areas such as Black River, Pedro Plains, Williamsfield, Mountainside, Tombstone, Balaclava, Newton and Braes River," he indicated.

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