The excavation of manholes and trenching for underground facilities are the initial steps being taken in preparation for the redevelopment of The Valley Main Road, otherwise known as the Carter Rey Boulevard.
The work is a partnership involving the Ministry of Infrastructure; the Anguilla Electricity Company; Digicel; Flow; the Water Corporation and the Department of Information Technology and E-commerce.
ANGLEC’s Chief Operations Manager, Mr. Steve Hodge, one of the project supervisors, told The Anguillian newspaper: “We are doing the underground infrastructure for the overhead cables – but it all starts with getting the ducts and other work in place. We, at ANGLEC, started a project from Corito to the Princess Alexandra Hospital, taking up The Valley, as we were to proceed, giving us a three-year window to do so. But that is now ambitious, so to speak, as the project was knocked out by COVID-19. We started the current road work on Monday, August 9, and its completion schedule is not until September 27.
“What we are doing is just a phase of the road reconstruction project for the manholes, trenching and ducts. As I said, there are a quite a number of partners involved in the work from the National Commercial Bank to as far as The Valley Roundabout. This does not include the cables which will later be installed both for present and future underground services. That’s another phase to bring in the cables transformers and other facilities later on.”
Told about the important roles which he and other Anguillian supervisors and leadership teams are undertaking, without off-island assistance, Mr. Hodge replied: “I am actually proud, and very much so, because one of the things we are doing, as a company, is resilience. This is a buzz word for us now as we are in a hurricane zone. Since 1995 when a hurricane comes and knocks down what we are doing – and then we have to rebuild it – that work has much cost attached. Therefore, as part of our resilience planning, we have to put facilities underground. In that way the restoration work would not take months – and cost so much.”
Among those working with him are fellow Anguillians Mr. Lincoln Hodge, ANGLEC’s Line Supervisor; and Mr. Shaynis Connor, Road Engineer at the Department of Infrastructure.
The contractors are Mr. Frederick (Daddy) Harrigan and Mr. Sonny Ruan both of whom have worked on a previous trenching section of the road. “We are doing all the underground cabling for ANGLEC and all of the other utilities,” Mr. Harrigan stated. “We are hoping to finish within six to seven weeks. Some of the equipment, carrying out the work, belongs to me, Junior Fleming and others. I am giving everybody a taste of it. The equipment includes heavy hammers and other regular bucket excavators.”
The work has created a busy traffic lane in the area, requiring careful driving of other vehicles – as well as pedestrian travel.
