JCC names team for review of highway to Point Fortin

The Joint Consultative Council (JCC) has named member of the highway review committee, which has 50 days to determine whether the state has adequately addressed the social impact of the Debe to Mon Desir segment of the San Fernando to Point Fortin Highway.

The team is headed by Independent senator Dr James Armstrong and includes:

Francis-Ann Hanson-Lewis: Principal consultant for environmental issues

• Jamaican Elinor Jones and US-based Trinidadian Eden Shand: Resource consultants
• Marilyn Crichlow: Principal consultant for water resources and water management, who will also head a small team
• Grace Les Fouris: Planning consultant
• Ivan Laughlin: Settlement and housing consultant
• Louis Bertrand of HBC Associates, Belmont: Social impact consultant
• Barbadian Janice Cumberbatch: Resource consultant
• Peter Harris: Archaeologist
• Ken Subran: Land valuation and acquisition
• Michale Toney: Economic and cost-benefit analysis
• William Agard: Traffic/transportation efficiency

Armstrong told the Guardian newspaper, “These are the people who have accepted the position but we are still looking for two other experts to assist in transportation and cost-benefit analysis,” Armstrong said. 

“We have got a vast amount of work to do. I have been working very hard at going through the documents,” he added.
The government agreed to establish an independent review committee based on the JCC's recommendations as a compromise to satisfy the Highway reroute Movement (HRM) and end the hunger strike by HRM leader Wayne Kublalsingh.

The JCC is funding the exercise, Armstrong told the paper.