A frustrated local resident named Denzil has penned an open letter to the editor calling out widespread mismanagement and a total lack of accountability for botched infrastructure works in Newfield, slamming a series of uncoordinated, wasteful construction projects that have upended daily life for local homeowners for months.
In his scathing critique, Denzil argues that the entire initiative has been marked by chaotic planning from start to finish, with no clear leadership, no cohesive master plan, no regulatory oversight, and ultimately no one willing to take responsibility for the mess left behind.
The core of his anger centers on work carried out by the Antigua Public Utilities Authority (APUA), which tore up local roadways to install new utility pipes that have sat disconnected and abandoned for months. Today, local roads remain ripped up and littered with construction debris, while thick clouds of dust plague nearby residential properties — and residents still have no access to improved water service that the project was meant to deliver.
One particularly egregious example, Denzil notes, is the stretch of road connecting Friars Hill Road and Marble Hill Road. Crews first excavated this roadway in the first week of January. Two months ago, they returned to spend six weeks constructing a new sidewalk along one side of the corridor, then pulled out of the site with no further work for a full month. Now, crews have returned once again to dig up the opposite side of the road to build a second unnecessary sidewalk.
Denzil questions the logic behind this piecemeal approach, pointing out that the road sees very little pedestrian traffic, making the two new sidewalks a complete waste of public funds that only serve to narrow the roadway and disrupt vehicle access.
Worse still, he explains, the entire project was launched to address persistent recurring damage to the road surface. A simple preliminary investigation would have revealed that the root cause of the damage is runoff water from a nearby entertainment complex that undermines the road’s foundation every weekend. Despite all the disruption, dust, and public money spent on the current pipe and sidewalk works, the root problem has not been addressed at all — meaning the newly rebuilt road will inevitably crack and crumble again once work is complete, whenever that may be.
“For how much longer will we put up with this nonsense?” Denzil asks, closing his letter with a plea for action to fix the broken system that allowed this unplanned, wasteful project to move forward.