By January 23, 13 hectares of land would have been reclaimed at Anse Aux Pins, which means the creation of one of the two "islands" proposed in the initial plan of the project, which also includes the creation of a channel for fishermen.

The Anse Aux Pins reclamation work, which started this week, is being carried out by UCPS excavators as the dredger Vesalius could not do the work on account of rough sea condition and a breakdown in its auxiliary spud.

Meanwhile Vesalius' contract comes to an end on January 30, when it will leave for Thailand in a specialised vessel.

Speaking to the press at the Anse Aux Pins site Thursday afternoon, Mr Patrick Lablache, the special advisor in the Ministry of Land Use and Habitat, said Vesalius had on three occasions attempted to work at the site, but had failed. 

As a result, Mr Lablache said, Vesalius had to dig and pump up materials in the vicinity of the South East Island from where they were conveyed via a two-kilometre long pipe running parallel to the runway up to the site to be reclaimed.

According to Mr Lablache around 26,000 cubic metres of materials are being pumped per day.

In view of the fact that Vesalius will be leaving soon, Mr Lablache said it had to accelerate its work to continue building up a stock of material to complete the project.

Reclamation of the second "island", which will comprise some 9 hectares of land, will be done by UCPS excavators using the material stockpiled by Vesalius. This work is expected to be completed in three years' time.

Despite the delay in the completion of the Anse Aux Pins reclamation project, Mr Lablache noted that some of the infrastructural projects initially proposed would still go on, such as the road to be constructed from Anse Faure up to the district's children's playground.

Noting that this project would be done in two stages, Mr Lablache said the first phase of construction would end at the market and the second phase would complete it.

A 100-metre wide and 10-metre deep channel for fishermen was initially proposed for the project, but since the dredger has been unable to carry out the excavation work at the site, Mr Lablache said the passage, which will be dug out by the excavators, would now be smaller in size but would not pose a problem to the fishermen since their boats would be able to navigate through the channel quite easily.

He said work on the channel would start in the next few weeks.

A representative from the fishermen community at Anse Aux Pins, Mr Guy Esparon, who has been working on board Vesalius to oversee the reclamation work in progress, said it was understandable that due to rough weather condition Vesalius had not been able to work at the site but expressed hope that the excavator would carry off the job successfully.

The reclamation at Anse Aux Pins will provide more land for the industrial and commercial activities, construction of a new school, recreational facilities and health centre, as well as several other projects.

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