New Goodwood police post abandoned due to soil erosion

Stephon Nicholas

To­ba­go Cor­re­spon­dent

Just one week af­ter its of­fi­cial open­ing, the Good­wood mi­cro polic­ing unit has been closed due to in­fra­struc­ture con­cerns, in­clud­ing soil ero­sion af­fect­ing its foun­da­tion.

The fa­cil­i­ty, built on a hill­side in Good­wood, To­ba­go, was of­fi­cial­ly opened on Oc­to­ber 13 by Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar. How­ev­er, of­fi­cers were or­dered to va­cate the premis­es just 24 hours lat­er.

While the Good­wood post re­mains closed, op­er­a­tions con­tin­ue at the Sig­nal Hill and Ply­mouth mi­cro polic­ing units, which were com­mis­sioned on the same day. The To­ba­go fa­cil­i­ties are among 30 mi­cro polic­ing posts the Gov­ern­ment plans to es­tab­lish across the coun­try.

Se­nior Su­per­in­ten­dent Rod­hil Kirk again con­firmed yes­ter­day that the clo­sure was linked to in­fra­struc­ture is­sues but said he could not pro­vide a time­line for when po­lice and mil­i­tary per­son­nel would be able to re­sume op­er­a­tions from the lo­ca­tion.

“I know they have done some as­sess­ments and there are things that re­al­ly need to be cor­rect­ed be­fore of­fi­cers can re­turn to op­er­at­ing from with­in that com­pound,” Kirk said.

Asked to elab­o­rate, he said, “There are some mi­nor is­sues that need to be ad­dressed. Our wa­ter sup­ply needs to be reg­u­larised and there are oth­er mat­ters that I would rather those above me speak about.”

When Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed the fa­cil­i­ty yes­ter­day, cracks were vis­i­ble in sev­er­al sec­tions be­hind the build­ing’s foun­da­tion. Ev­i­dence of ero­sion was al­so ap­par­ent, with near­ly six inch­es of soil washed away be­neath part of the struc­ture near the edge of a ravine. Ex­posed foun­da­tion steel could be seen where the soil had re­ced­ed.

Good­wood res­i­dent Steve Man­swell de­scribed the sit­u­a­tion as un­ac­cept­able.

“This is a new build­ing. Why should it al­ready have in­fra­struc­ture is­sues?” he asked.

While ques­tion­ing the qual­i­ty of the work car­ried out by the con­trac­tor, Man­swell said he re­mained hope­ful that the prob­lems could be rec­ti­fied quick­ly so the fa­cil­i­ty could re­open.

He added that res­i­dents had wel­comed the in­creased po­lice pres­ence and were ea­ger to see the post be­come op­er­a­tional.

An­oth­er res­i­dent, who de­clined to be iden­ti­fied, called for ac­count­abil­i­ty, not­ing that tax­pay­ers’ mon­ey had been spent on the project.

“It had to close be­cause they forced some­thing that didn’t make sense. It’s un­for­tu­nate that since it was com­mis­sioned, it hasn’t been able to serve the com­mu­ni­ty. This is where the Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment, area rep­re­sen­ta­tives and sec­re­taries need to step in and make sense of what hap­pened. We will see how things un­fold,” the res­i­dent said.

Mean­while, Agnes Al­leyne, for­mer own­er of Sharon’s Coun­try­side Su­per­mar­ket, said the con­tin­ued clo­sure of the fa­cil­i­ty was dis­ap­point­ing.

“I was very hap­py when they brought this po­lice unit to Good­wood be­cause se­cu­ri­ty is a con­cern for me. But since it is not op­er­at­ing right now, I am not feel­ing good about it at all. I hope it can re­open very soon,” she said.

At last week’s open­ing cer­e­mo­ny, Per­sad-Bisses­sar di­rect­ed all ques­tions con­cern­ing the cost of the fa­cil­i­ties and the con­trac­tors in­volved to UDe­COTT chair­man Shankar Bidaisee. Ef­forts to con­tact Bidaisee and Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der for com­ment were un­suc­cess­ful up to pub­li­ca­tion.