Virginie, a resident of La Louvière is outraged by the state of her street. Since the road was redone, “the houses have been flooded by simple rain”. The site managers are aware of the problem but cannot do anything without the approval of the municipality…
Virginie has lived in La Louvière since 2016, she contacted us via the orange “Alert Us” button to tell us regarding the problems she has been encountering since the road in her street was redone: “The road has been raised and now the sidewalks serve as a channel“, she explains to us by telephone. She warned the town, but it told her that redoing the sidewalk is not a priority, especially since the street was already problematic before the work, given that it is sloping.
“Pedestrians have a choice, either they walk on one side of the street and get splashed by passing cars, or they walk on the other side and there they have their feet in the water“, protests Virginie. She explains to us that she tried to contact the site manager, but he remains unreachable. After several attempts, she ends up contacting her assistant who explains to her that work will have to be done to rectify the errors, but that no schedule has yet been established.
We also contacted the project assistant, Martin Petit, who explained to us the conditions for carrying out this work: “The municipality asked us to carry out a fairly rough job. It was just before the elections and there was still an envelope to be released. The budget was tight so instead of following the usual procedure (demolishing the old road to rebuild above), we were asked to pour a layer of tarmac regarding three centimeters above the existing road“.
This method is the cause of flooding because the tarmac added to the existing road exceeds the height of the sidewalk in some places. Martin noticed it during the work, but he cannot demolish the road and redo the work properly without a request being issued by the municipality.
The chief of staff of the Mayor of the city of La Louvière, Mehdi Mehzoud, meanwhile, says this: “Discussions are underway with contractors to reprofile edges where necessary“. We have not obtained further details.
