Three months after vendors of the La Penitence Market submitted a proposal for potential sites for their relocation, the Mayor and City Council (M&CC) is now moving to settle the issue.
With road works in the area scheduled to begin next week, the vendors fear a fate similar to the Stabroek Market vendors.
Yesterday, Deputy Mayor Robert Williams, who chairs the Market and Public Health Committee, visited the market along with committee members to evaluate the sites the vendors had proposed. According to Williams, the visit was made so that the committee could “come up with a proposal that will go to the government, after council sanctions the proposal.”
In a letter shown to this newspaper yesterday, dated October 18, 2010, the La Penitence vendors, who formed a committee, submitted proposals to Mayor Hamilton Green, President Bharrat Jagdeo as well as the Public Works and Local Government ministries. The letter stated, “We… would like to suggest that our Government bridge the Sussex Street Canal north of this Market to accommodate some of these stalls and purchase a vacant plot of land that is to the corner of James and Saffon streets.”
On October 5, the Government Information Agency had reported that the Ministry of Works had overlaid La Penitence carriageway from Punt Trench Dam to Broad Street, in keeping with plans to turn the stretch into a two-way road to ease traffic congestion during peak hours. To allow this, it was stated that the vendors of the market along Saffon Street will have to be removed. “These proposals are being considered by the markets committee. No decision has been arrived at as yet,” Williams said yesterday.
The vendors said that they met with the secretary of the market, who informed them of the pending removal. “They say anytime we gah move,” one of the vendors said, while others said they feared their stalls will be demolished like those at the Stabroek Market. “We feel very disturbed. We were here a very long time, generations,” said Moreen, a vendor who said she grew up at the market and took over her mother’s operation there.
The vendors wondered what is taking the M&CC so long to act on their proposals. However, Williams noted that another potential site is the Punt Trench Canal. But vendors are strongly opposed to being placed there. “Punt Trench is sheer thief. Right hey (at the market), next morning, is share filth when ya come. Them junkie does deh sleeping on ya stall. We are women, most of us and there is no sanitary facility there (Punt Trench),” said vendor Bissondair Ramcharitar.
Vendors fear the vandalism and theft of goods that they may have to endure if they are placed on Punt Trench. “The empty lot I don’t mind,” were the words uttered by many of them. They also insisted that they are not in the way of any works that are to be carried out.
When this newspaper contacted the Works Services Department of the Ministry of Public Works, it said reconstruction of the Sussex Street Bridge is expected to begin next week. Head of Works Services Rickford Lowe pointed out, however, that the date is tentative since they are to sort out a number of issues. Among the issues are the removal of vendors, who he said are “directly in the way” of the works. Lowe said he expected the M&CC to sort out the matter by the end of the week.
Other details to be worked out before works begin are the redirecting of traffic, since the road has to be closed and arrangements are currently being worked out with the M&CC, the police force and shipping companies which will be affected.
The decision to make Saffon Street, which has been a one-way street for several years, a two-lane roadway was taken as a measure to ease the build up of traffic from the East Bank. On completion of the works, vehicles would be allowed to travel through Saffon Street and enter the city either from Sussex Street or Broad Street, using the secondary roads leading into the city.
