Minister Meriton and partners inspect small projects at Mont Buxton |18 February 2016

The Minister for Social Affairs, Community Development and Sports, Vincent Meriton, together with partners of the Mont Buxton district administration and Seychelles Land Transport Agency, yesterday visited ongoing projects in that district to check on their progress.

The projects consist of footpaths and road enlargement. As it was raining heavily, it was the perfect opportunity for the officials to see the extent of flooding in those areas.

The enlargement of roads and construction of footpaths are aimed at improving safety of pedestrians who use these roads.

The visit was also an opportunity for the different stakeholders to see some areas of the district that have flooding problems especially on that stretch of road near the ex-MC shop which the inhabitants call “old Mont Buxton road”.

“There are some drainage problems. We are looking at what measures should be taken to solve them,” said Mahinda Herath, chief executive of SLTA.

He added that the footpaths and road enlargement projects including retaining walls were initiated last year and form part of the Victoria Master Plan 2020 Management. They are expected to be completed in April this year at a cost of R6 million.

“The objective of today’s visit is to see how we can channel that volume of water that comes down the old Mont Buxton road. Various ideas have been proposed and we are now going to put them into action,” said Minister Meriton.

He expressed concern at the number of school children using that road and the danger the flooding causes.

The minister added that way leave has already been granted to construct a pavement and railing bordering the main road from the ex-MC shop to join with the existing one down the road to the Cathedral of Immaculate Conception.

The “Dan Lenn” project will be analysed at greater depth in another visit planned to that area as it was too slippery and steep to do much during the rain.

Jean Claude Labrosse of the department of climate change and energy said his department has accompanied the minister on the visit to see the intensity of water that comes down the old Mont Buxton road when it rains.

“Our aim is to minimise the situation where water accumulates on the road and enters households as the drains are too narrow to cope with the volume of water that runs through,” said Mr Labrosse.