For years, residents of Silver Sands, Barbados, have endured crumbling, pothole-ridden local roads held together only by repeated temporary patchwork repairs that fail to stand up to the island’s heavy rainfall. Now fed up with unfulfilled government promises, the community is publicly calling for the long-promised full resurfacing work to finally get underway.
When a reporter from Barbados TODAY visited the district last week, the poor state of the infrastructure was immediately obvious. Many motorists had resorted to dangerous workarounds to navigate the damaged roads: some drivers pulled into the opposite lane to avoid large, deep potholes, while others slowed their vehicles to a crawl to minimize the risk of tire blowouts, suspension damage, or other costly mechanical issues.
Multiple residents told reporters that some stretches of road in Silver Sands have not undergone a full resurfacing in more than three decades. They added that the temporary patchwork repairs that crews repeatedly carry out rarely last more than a few weeks, as heavy tropical rain often washes the loose filler away, leaving the road in even worse condition than before the work was done.
One local resident described a confusing repair job he recently witnessed, saying crews dug up sections of pavement before refilling the trenches with loose stone, a fix that he says does nothing to address the underlying road damage. “They just dig up; I don’t know what they digging up for,” he explained. “They just digging up, throw in back the marl, then further down digging up looking for something and going down all the time so. I don’t know if they checking the mains.”
This resident confirmed the government has long promised to complete full resurfacing along the corridor from Oistins to Silver Sands, including Hopewell Road. “I know this is the plan, to get resurfaced; there’s a plan to come right up from Oistins and come up,” he said. But he noted that unfinished, haphazard work has already left new hazards: “Before it had a little hump; now you dropping in it cause they just digging out and throw the thing one side there so and left a hole.”
A female resident echoed the frustration, emphasizing that many key roads across the district have never been resurfaced at all in her lifetime. “There are other important roads that have never been touched; now who’s in charge of these operations cause it’s not making sense,” she said, adding that even when resurfacing work is started, crews leave gaps and unfilled holes behind before abandoning the project.
Longtime Silver Sands resident Carol Trotman summed up the community’s mood, describing the current road conditions as “terrible” and arguing that temporary patchwork fixes are no longer sufficient. “The roads are so, so bad and they keep patching, you know you put on a plaster and when the plaster start to roll off, you gotta put on a fresh one, but it need resurfacing,” she said.
Trotman explained why temporary pothole patching never lasts in the island’s climate. “You know this is rainy season now, then when the road keeps beating down the hole, then the hole gets worse- because when the plaster pulls out, it pulls out a whole set of everything, and then it gets deeper,” she said. She added that driving after dark is particularly dangerous, as rainwater fills potholes and hides their depth from drivers. “At night, it rains, and it’s full of water, and you drop in; what’s gonna happen now?”
Like many in the community, Trotman said she is exhausted by repeated unkept promises from elected officials. “They need to do their work and stop promising; a promise is a comfort to a fool… It’s not only about you; it’s about us cause us is who put you here in the first place, and you can’t do things just to suit yourself. I think you need to work for the people,” she said.
Trotman called for full resurfacing across the entire Silver Sands area, stretching from Ealing Park to the Eggabout and down to Sayers Court. She also criticized the fragmented nature of past repair work, noting that after crews resurface a stretch of road, utility teams often dig up the new pavement to carry out water or natural gas work, leaving new potholes and uneven surfaces behind with no follow-up repairs.
When asked about the Pearly app, launched earlier this year to allow Barbados residents to report potholes and other infrastructure issues directly to the government, Trotman said she prefers direct communication with officials rather than using a digital tool. “I prefer talk because those things don’t actually let you speak what’s on your mind,” she said, adding that she also avoids calling into popular radio talk shows to share complaints, after past experiences where her comments were cut off when she criticized officials. “What the sense I have issues but when I start to say the truth they gone cut me off, I don’t need that nonsense. I prefer to talk to you one on one and say what I have to say.”
As of press time, attempts by Barbados TODAY to contact Silver Sands’ Member of Parliament and the Minister of Transport and Works for comment on the residents’ complaints have not received a response.