HUGHES BROOK Maurice Osborne has some “awful happy” residents in his town these days.
That’s because Hughes Brook is finally seeing some activity on a paving project that the town applied for capital works funding for in 2010.
Osborne is the mayor of the small north shore community of about 219 people.
“It’s been over 15 years, I think, since there’s been any capital works funding for Hughes Brook,” said Osborne.
So, he said, to see the paving project started last week has people feeling good.
“I think it makes people feel like they’ve been put on the map. And that the future looks a little brighter,” he said.
“We’ve got pavement. We’ve got a $30,000 playground system put in last year and it is the intention to make our (town) hall complement everything else.”
The paving project was approved by the province under capital works funding last August. The work was supposed to have been completed after that, but was delayed.
Osborne didn’t have an exact figure on the work but noted the town is “piggybacking” off the Department of Transportation on the project. That has allowed them to save a bit of money and get a little more pavement.
Some four kilometres of roads in the town will be paved, including the three sideroads of Garden Road, First Avenue and Suley’s Road.
About half of the main road in the town was paved over 25 years ago. Osborne said when the paving is complete all roads owned by the town will be paved. The exception, he said, will be a couple of small roads with only two homes on them. While technically in the town, Osborne said these roads are not owned by the municipality.
With the paving project now underway, Osborne said the town is looking ahead to future projects with a plan to apply for capital works funding again in January 2013.
“We didn’t apply last year because we’re a debt free community and we intend to stay that way,” said Osborne.
“We want to just do everything in phases so that we don’t have to increase our taxes and we remain debt free.”
Osborne said the town would like to do some more paving, but its focus will be on the town hall.
The hall was damaged by fire a while ago and Osborne said there is some question about the condition of the floor.
“It’s an old building, so we really do need to upgrade it.”
