Richmond County Developer Unhappy With Road Maintenance Standards

ST. GEORGE'S CHANNEL - This Richmond County community recently endured a road washout due to Hurricane Fiona, but according to a land developer who established a subdivision in the area three decades ago, road maintenance is a long-running concern - and he's now demanding action from the municipal and provincial governments. 

Paul Wall appeared before the recent Committee of the Whole meeting of Richmond Municipal Council in Arichat, to express his concern that a section of St. George's Channel Estates known as Wall Street - which Wall himself constructed in 1991 - is not receiving adequate winter snow removal and general road maintenance from either Richmond's Public Works Department or the Nova Scotia Department of Public Works (DPW), formerly known as several variations of the provincial Department of Transportation. 

"I put a sixty-six foot right-of-way in, and it was turned over to the provincial government right away, in the fall of 1994," Wall explained to the October 11 meeting at the Richmond Municipal Building. 

"Right now, there's so much foilage growing out of the road that there's 10-inch trees growing out of the shoulder... And they're leaning over the road, and it is a hazard for pretty much everybody that walks up and down the road towards the [community] mailbox. And you can't see the stop-sign coming up and down Wall Street."

Richmond Warden Amanda Mombourquette pointed out that, while the municipality and the province were both made aware of the situation at St. George's Channel Estates, it will require a funding commitment on both sides before action can be taken. 

The meeting also heard from another community on the Bras d'Or Lake - specifically, Iona, located on the coastline of neighbouring Victoria County - as the Highland Village Museum made a pitch for Richmond to consider contributing towards the final leg of a $6.84-million fundraising campaign that would enable the museum to expand and upgrade its facilities. With only $300,000 left to raise before the Gaelic cultural centre reaches its target, Highland Village Museum director Rodney Chaisson and fundraising directors Wilfrid MacNeil - a former superintendent of the Richmond District School Board - and M.A. MacPherson expressed hope that Richmond County could be among the municipalities from across Nova Scotia that are making donations towards the Iona venture. 

In response, Warden Mombourquette thanked the museum delegation for its presentation and confirmed that the request would go towards Richmond County's upcoming budget deliberations.