The country’s main opposition party is expressing concern over traffic safety and parking on Factory Road in the vicinity of the Tranquility Park public cemetery ahead of its June 16 opening.
The Cabinet Notes on Thursday confirmed that burials will commence at the new cemetery next month.
However, Chairman of the United Progressive Party (UPP) Gisele Isaac listed several concerns, highlighting that funeral traffic will likely pose some issues for other road users.
“Sometimes on a Friday night you’re going down that road, Factory Road, and with a crowded XPZ and the crowd at the football field there, suppose you have two big funerals at the cemetery at the same time; where do people park?
“If there is a fire or there’s a medical emergency, how do the vehicles get through? I just don’t understand what’s going on here.
They need to transfer some people for real, but they need to transfer the people in Cabinet,” Isaac commented.
The government had boasted about several amenities which would form part of the new burial ground, one of which is a chapel.
And even as Prime Minister Gaston Browne indicated that the sanctuary would likely be finished by the end of the year, Isaac is questioning the length of time being taken to complete the other facilities.
“Where is the crematorium? Where is the chapel? Where is the parking lot? We were promised these things since, I think 2017, when the first tranche of money was disbursed for this new cemetery.
And … you put up a big sign with a chapel and so on, and you tell us about a crematorium, and you’ve been telling us this for years, and anybody who drives by will see what I assume is a gatehouse in a very small cemetery and nothing else.
“Another promise of promises that have not been kept. Where are these facilities for this new and modern cemetery that Sir Molwyn Joseph promised us how many years now, designed by people from Arlington?
Where is that? Where are the people who should have gotten work to build the cemetery and the crematorium and so on?” Isaac queried.
The cemetery’s opening has been plagued by several issues, one of which is the rainy weather which reportedly halted the paving of the road within the grounds.
Plans for the cemetery were announced in 2017. That notice attracted concerns from residents in the Potters community who raised issues about flooding and the likely traffic build-up in the community.