Environment step up efforts to remove derelict roadside vehicles

Derelict vehicles abandoned along primary and secondary roads on Mahé and Praslin will be re-moved and taken to the scrap yard in a new joint drive by the Police, the Ministry of Environment, and the Land Waste Management Agency.

Assistant Superintendent of Police Antoine Denousse said that around 50 derelict vehicles have been spotted on Mahé and Praslin, the owners of which have been issued with a removal notice. Vehicle owners will get a number of days to claim back their vehicle or lose it. This joint exercise by the police, the Ministry of Environment, Energy and Climate Change and the Land Waste Management Agency (LWMA) will be made possible with an Environment Trust Fund grant of SCR550,000.

The signing for the grant took place last week at the Environment department, Botanical Gardens between the principal secretary for Environment, Alain Decomarmond, the deputy chief of LWMA, Rahul Mangroo, and the Assistant Commissioner ofPolice Ted Barbe.

The vehicles once removed from the road, will be placed at a designated area in Providence for a period of around 28 days, considered as ample time for the owners to claim them back. If no one claims back his or her vehicle during that time, it will be dumped at the nearby scrapyard. In addition to bearing all the costs associated with the disposal of the vehicles, the owners will also face prosecution for failing in the first place to remove those vehicles from previous warnings.

PS Decomarmond said: “It is the responsibility of the owners to either dispose of their vehicles or put them in a garage if they are to be fixed rather than leaving them idle by the roadside”. He added that the Police will not be responsible for any damage that may occur to vehicles while being removed. Derelict vehicles deemed as eye sores even on private property may also be targeted as they are disfiguring the surrounding environment.

Source: Nation.sc