Westpark School in Portage la Prairie is less than one month away from summer break, which means maintenance can begin on the school's parking lot. Principal Brian Ferguson says the parking lot has been a bit of an issue so far this year, and it would be nice to get things fixed up. He explains why the parking lot is in need of repair.

Westpark Principal Brian Ferguson"We do get soft spots in the spring and we've speculated everything from poor drainage to whether there's an underground spring or something. This spring, for some reason, even though it seemed to be a dry winter, there were some very soft areas in the parking lot."

He explains what they'll be doing over the summer.

"We're basically doing some maintenance work on the parking lot. There are a number of soft areas and we're really toward preparing to pave the whole parking area eventually. It turned out to be a little bit more work than we thought, so we're going to have to take out a deeper amount because of the soft spots underneath. We're just stock piling gravel right now because we'll never be able to haul in enough gravel once they start digging it out."

Ferguson adds they'd like to get the entire lot paved in the near future.

"We're not necessarily expanding the lot, we're developing it, not just with the school but also through Prairie Alliance Church. Eventually the parking will go right across the front of the building, and then on the west side we hope to get a curb to separate the property from Canad Inns. I don't know whether or not we'll get to paving this summer."

He says no major work will be done to the parking lot until summer because that would create too much chaos during drop off and pick up times at the school.

Gravel in the parking lot for summer work