Persons who presently have shipping containers, equipment or materials inside the Festival Grounds are being urged to have them removed by midday Friday December 24 or they will be removed and billed to the owners of the containers.
City Manager Mrs. Janis Braithwaite-Edwards said the issue of residents having their containers driven from Port Purcell to the Festival Grounds without first seeking permission and getting approval from the City Manager’s Office, is getting ridiculous.
She made the statement in an invited comment from 284News after her office had issued a bulletin on the BVI Government’s website urging residents with containers presently inside the Festival Grounds to have them removed before 12noon tomorrow.
The City Manager said the popular location will be booked from December 24 to March 31 and therefore needs to be cleared to ensure that the paying customer of the timeline has full access to the grounds.
She said, “I happened to pass festival grounds yesterday to see the one major container empty with all its contents on the grounds. If people are going to pull containers from the port to the Festival Grounds, they need to contact the City Manager’s Office to get permission. People just take their containers, drive them into Festival Grounds and offload them. They don’t even take into consideration that maybe Festival Grounds is booked.”
“Festival Grounds is booked and if it’s booked, somebody has it already and they’re paying for it. You bringing your container on to Festival Grounds, you need to request permission to bring your container there and there are fees for bringing containers to Festival Grounds. People just have a tendency to just bring their containers to Festival Grounds, offload it, leave their stuff on the ground, leave the pallets on the ground, then it costs us to have to clean it up when you haven’t gotten permission and you haven’t paid any fees to be operating on Festival Grounds,” she added.
Wrecker will be called and fee billed to container owner
Mrs. Brathwaite-Edwards said that if the containers are not moved by midday tomorrow, her department will have them moved and have the bill sent to the owners of the containers.
“When we call the wrecker, then we will have to pay the wrecker because we called them and then we will issue the person an invoice to pay the bill for the container. But it is getting ridiculous because we have a notice at the port that says unless you have permission, you should not be driving and bring your containers to the Festival Grounds. This is ridiculous, this don’t make no sense,” she explained.
Persons with containers next the Queen Elizabeth II urged also
Meanwhile in a subsequent government bulletin, the City Manager’s Office also made an appeal for persons with containers, equipment and materials situated next to the Queen Elizabeth II Park to have them removed by Friday December 31.
Mrs. Brathwaite-Edwards also said that persons who would like to seek permission to temporarily store their containers in the Festival Grounds should call the Wickham’s Cay Development Authority at 494-3172 or email at tempwcda@gmail.com.
