Bellefield to get water shop

Some communities in the Bellefield division in Manchester have been without running water for a number of years. The community of Bombay is one such area. Glenroy Richards, a resident of the area, said that the community had piped water but the pipelines were removed in the '70s or '80s.

"When you don't have any water you have to depend on the rainfall," he said.

Although he has a tank at his home, Richards has to purchase water during the dry periods. "The last time I bought a truckload of water I paid about $18,000."

Mario Mitchell, councillor of the Bellefield division, said that he recently had a meeting with Member of Parliament for Central Manchester Peter Bunting and representatives of the National Water Commission (NWC).

"In the plains of my division like Williamsfield, Hope Village and Content, there is water there because of the infrastructure. The hilly areas, Bombay, Banana Ground and Davyton, none of those areas have piped water," Mitchell said.

These hilly communities are, therefore, dependent on the parish council water truck. This one truck serves all 15 communities in the division.

Mitchell said he is moving to address the water woes.

"I'm happy to announce that we will be getting something that the Government deemed a water shop, and that will be placed in Bellefield square, and that will alleviate the problem a lot because of the fact that there's no piped water there. People can come and use it, it will be free for the citizens," he said.

"It will be purified, clean drinking water, but people will just have to bring their containers, and they sign into the office and they will receive the water," the councillor said.

The water shop project is an eight million-dollar investment and construction is expected to begin within the next month.

"That will fix the short-term problem but I'm still working on getting the long-term solution of piped water across the communities," he said.