04/08/2023
From February 2020 to July 2023, we were contracted to conduct Community Liaison Services for the Ministry of Infrastructure, Development, and Housing's Sixth Road (Coastal Highway Upgrading) Project. This project was an important project for the country because it will provide more efficient transportation from the North of the country to the South. There will be efficiency in time, fuel, and wear and tear on vehicles and overall cost savings for individuals and companies traversing this thoroughfare.
Some of the stakeholders that will benefit the most were the people we had the pleasure of working with and those are the villagers of La Democracia, Gales Point Manatee, Mullins River, and Hope Creek. We made many new friends there. The villagers of Gales Point Manatee and Mullins River, however, will benefit the most, because previously, they were cut off from the main highways of George Price and Hummingbird due to the conditions of their entrance and Coastal Roads. Although the villagers were quite happy with their isolation, they are very welcoming of some of the opportunities that will arise from the new Coastal Plain Highway. Some of those opportunities are better transportation, better access to health and medical attention, shopping, education, employment, and entertainment.
The villages of Gales Point Manatee and Mullins River were the recipient of two added value projects, we say added value because those projects were not part of the project’s scope, however, were nevertheless completed. Those projects were conducted due to the cost savings the project had from the overall project. These added value projects were the paving of the entrance roads ( roads from the Coastal Plain Highway to the village). The entrance roads to Gales Point Manatee and Mullins River were a major hindrance to the development of these villages due to their condition (rough and easily flooded); very few commercial vehicles wanted to go into these villages because of their condition. Villagers had to hitchhike to the Coastal Plain Road and then hitchhike from there to wherever they were going. Where the average person would normally jump into their vehicle and drive down to the city and back within a few hours, these villagers had to plan their trips, which normally took an overnight trip at the shortest.
With the new entrance roads, the Village of Gales Point will be able to better utilize the training of some 30 new tour guides that were trained last year. At Mullins River, the new entrance road allowed the village to conduct its first annual Mullins River Festival/Day, something they could not do previously due to the condition of the roads. Since Mullins River’s population is down to 35 people from a robust 700 in the 60s, the yearly Mullins River Festival will allow the village to develop the village’s socioeconomic growth within the village and hopefully breathe new life into a forgotten historic village.
The Coastal Plain Highway, which was proposed almost 30 years ago and caused the minister who proposed it to be ridiculed, will become one of Belize’s best-built highways (environmentally and ecologically) and one of our most important thoroughfares linking the North of the country with the South.
Photo Credit: Amandala Newspaper
