Work is progressing very well at the construction site of the Anguilla Community College in the Long Road/Farrington area.
This is according to the contractor for the Technical Centre, the first stage of the project, Mr. Cephas Webster. He was commenting on the refurbishing of what was the old factory shell now being converted into the technical wing of the college.
“We are making good progress at the moment. We have done the demolition work and are removing the top soil so that we can replace those areas with roads and other tracks,” he told The Anguillian newspaper on Monday, September 16. “We are putting up blocks and are now getting ready to install the beams and columns as far as those blocks are concerned.
“This is going to be a refurbished building for the Anguilla Community College’s Technical Centre,” the positively-speaking contractor and influential Baptist preacher stressed. “This work should take approximately ten months according to the time in the contract, but we think we may complete it sooner provided all the materials are readily available.”
Mr. Webster
continued: “After the construction of the Technical Centre will be phase two – provided that the funding is available. But phase two will go on international bidding. Whether we are able to compete with the international bidders is another question. Our concern is just this first phase for local bidders. We won the bid and are proceeding accordingly, and we are doing pretty well up to now, we think.”
The contractor explained that his company was now in the process of ordering the steel beams and roof-sheeting for the Technical Centre, and was also expected to order the shutters shortly. “However, all the material we are about to order has to be approved by the consultants before we can do so,” he stated. “We just got approval on Friday, September 13, for the roof and we are wiring the money today to the suppliers. The company we are ordering from is Structural Systems in Barbados.
“The consultants are a group from Barbados called Collaborative Design Engineering and Consultancy. They are the consultants for this phase, and Campus A of the Albena Lake-Hodge Comprehensive School, as far as I understand.”
Mr. Webster has been a qualified builder for many years but now does more supervisory and purchasing work than before. He is the Principal of Quality Construction Limited and has some twenty workers, in several categories, employed on the Technical Centre for the Anguilla Community College.
That structure is occupying part of a total of eleven-and-a-half acres of land which the Government of Anguilla owns – and has made available to the Anguilla Community College.
Meanwhile, in an effort to protect residents downwind, Mr. Webster has erected a 400-foot dust barrier which is doing a very effective job.
Original funding for the Anguilla Community College was provided by the Caribbean Development Bank.
According to the Minutes of Executive Council for September 5, 2019, additional funding was approved for the Community College by EXCO by way of a contingency warrant, in the amount of EC$ 516,000 for the remainder of 2019. The money is to assist with the operations of the college.
