Westbourne residents and businesses speak out about province's road project

Westbourne residents and business owners are concerned about how the impacts that a provincial overhaul of its entry into town will affect them. Shur-Gro Farm Services is located in the spot where the new entrance is planned to be constructed in May.  

Kaitlyn Davey is the company's sales agronomist and says the main route will go directly in front of their office.

"They're implementing parallel parking," says Davey. "Shur-Gro wasn't built on the main drag for a reason. We unload trucks into our shed that's there. We have customers pulling with Super-Bees before they go down to our other site. Where is the room going to be? When customers come, if employees all have the parallel parking, where are customers going to be parking?"

She weighs in on how the Shur-Gro site has also been the location where parents have been dropping off their children for the school bus to pick them up.

"We had the flood last year, and pretty much every year, just down the road here, where the school bus could go down," notes Davey. "It can't cross the water over the road. So, the school bus was using space right in front of our office because it's a central point in town. It's not a busy street as it is, and it's a good place for all the parents to meet with the kids. So, that's where the bus was dropping the kids off."

Kaitlyn Davey

She notes Shur-Gro was okay with that. Davey explains what transpired in discussions with MTI (Manitoba Transportation and Infrastructure).

"The concern is the safety of the children there," adds Davey. "When our manager had approached MTI back in July about the situation at that time, MTI had said that there was a resolution already in place. At that time, we had no say in it. They were going to put curbs up in front of our office where our parking is. That's where we park our square, our water truck, and our heavy equipment. How are we going to park it now? Where are we going to park it now with those curbs there? But at that time, they told us we had no say in it because there was a resolution already in place which, in fact, there wasn't -- we found out later on. Because there was already a resolution in place, we negotiated because we had to, for the bare minimum of what we needed and wanted."

Resident Patrick Callin moved to the community three years ago from Alberta and posed many questions to council and MTI. He says he feels the council is behind the wishes of the community and is doing the best it can to help.

"I believe that MTI's hands are tied from what they're telling us at this point," says Callin. "We're a small community that believes that our safety is not being considered; that our rural municipality is not being fully looked at to support our future growth or development, but I believe that Council is behind us. We hope that they're able to do something to maybe delay this so we can look at other safety or viable options."

Patrick Callin

Callin notes MTI is informing the community that nothing can be done at this point to change the plans.  "The contractors have already been awarded. The plans have been stamped by engineers. They're good to go. They're ready to start in the beginning of May. Council has assured us that they're going to take it to the minister and, hopefully, move forward and. we can make some changes before that happens."

He adds MTI explained this was first discussed in 2014 and passed. 

"I believe that it was passed and approved in June of last year, but I can't confirm that either way," says Callin. "It was faulted by the previous council and by MTI that nobody approached the community and the residents of our community to proceed."