Minister of Works and Engineering David Burch has named July 31 as "D-Day" when he will proceed with a compulsory purchase order if necessary to begin work on a dangerous South Shore junction.

As The Royal Gazette has previously reported, one landowner is demanding more compensation than that offered by Government to five others relating to the road improvement scheme at Collectors Hill, Smith's.

That landowner is understood to be Gibbons Company, which owns land associated with the A1 Fine Foods Market near the junction of Collectors Hill and South Road.

Sen. Burch told the Senate on Friday that his Ministry is still in negotiations with the landowner. "I have designated July 31 as 'D-Day' wherein we will proceed with a compulsory purchase order should we not reach agreement. My technical officers are optimistic of a resolution shortly and therefore a CPO may not be necessary," he said.

The Minister made the remarks during a wide-ranging 'end of term' statement to the Senate. He said he was delighted to be able to report that the negotiations between Government and Mr. Gilbert Lopes for the construction of 96 homes at the Loughlands property in Paget were concluded yesterday morning.

Among other issues touched upon was the hole in the roof of the residential home Lefroy House that was caused by Hurricane Fabian. The lack of repair has been repeatedly condemned by the Opposition.

"A contractor to repair the roof has finally been secured. The contract has been bid three times with great difficulty as most contractors are too busy and while several tenders were collected, few were returned. The contract has been approved and the contractor has advised he is able to start work immediately," said Sen. Burch.

On the subject of water, the Minister said that although tanks across the Island were low at this time in 2005, "fortunately, so far this summer rainfall is up and we are coping with what is still an ancient system that needs a major overhaul".

He said a new automatic water trucker outlet at the former ZFB property on the North Shore should be online by late August, complete with a 115,000 gallon per day reverse osmosis treatment plant and a storage reservoir.

"Unfortunately, we have experienced an unexpected number of delays and challenges in commissioning this new system and our water engineers are working tirelessly to get the plant up and running as soon as possible," he said. An additional one million gallons of water storage is now available at Prospect, and the Minister said plans are well advanced to repair the third one million gallon reservoir. "The water reservoir in St. George's is currently under reconstruction and will be completed in September of this year," added Sen. Burch. He said a contract for the 500,000 gallon per day seawater reverse osmosis plant at Tynes Bay will soon be awarded, with the project expected to be completed by September 2007.

On the subject of the St. George ferry service, the Minister said that since the floating ferry dock at Market Wharf was destroyed during Hurricane Fabian, the ferry service has been operating from a dock to the West of the Yacht Reporting Centre. However, this has been causing problems due to a lack of space for manoeuvring. The new St George's Ferry is too long to operate from the existing dock, so a new temporary berth is to be located at Market Wharf.

And referring to the Island's crumbling masonry, Sen. Burch said that out of 265 dangerous wall and rock cut inspections, 83 have been identified as the responsibility of Government and have been repaired or are scheduled for repair.

"Of the remaining 182 walls and rock cuts that are the responsibility of private landowners, only 19 have been repaired. As such, there remains 163 dangerous walls and rock cuts that require remedial work," said the Minister, who estimated that inspection requests for wall and rock cut inspections were coming in at a rate of three per week.