Saint Lucia: Feasibility Study and Detailed Designs for the Millennium Highway and West Coast Road Upgrading Project

We are pleased to announce that IMC Worldwide, together with other partners, has won the Feasibility Study and Detailed Designs for the Millennium Highway and West Coast Road Upgrading Project in Saint Lucia.

The objective of this consultancy is to prepare a feasibility study and preliminary detailed designs to upgrade the Millennium Highway and  West Coast Road incorporating climate change, social inclusion, gender and safety considerations.  This will be achieved through the identification of climate change vulnerabilities, assessment of hydro-logical and hydraulic conditions, identification of least-cost civil works, and the preparation of detailed designs.

Although we have worked in Saint Lucia as part of regional programmes implemented in the Caribbean, this is our first ever country-specific project working directly with the Ministry of Infrastructure, Ports and Energy in Saint Lucia. The project will involve three of our technical teams:

• Cities and Resilient Development: for the identification of climate change vulnerabilities and recommendation on adaptation as well as prioritization of infrastructure investment
• Economics and Finance: to undertake an economic analysis of improvement and road maintenance options
• Engineering: for the Road Safety Audit

We expect this to be the start of a series of projects we will be working on in the Caribbean to support infrastructure rehabilitation programmes, as several strong hurricanes affected the region in 2016, 2017 and 2018. The 2018 Atlantic Hurricane Season was the third in a consecutive series of above-average and damaging Atlantic hurricane seasons, which caused a total of over USD $49.975 billion in damages. 

According to recent studies, Atlantic hurricanes could be getting worse because of climate change. In the past 24 years, there has been a significant increase in named storms and hurricanes in the Caribbean and Atlantic regions. Human induced-climate change contributes to warmer waters. As a result, oceans continue to warm at a fast pace, meaning that hurricanes are more likely than before. 

Our engineering skills, combined with our focus on development, climate change and capacity building can ensure that we will leave communities connected and empowered to face future challenges and benefit from new paths. 

The project will be managed by Nuria Biosca and technical inputs will be provided by herself as well as Jonathan Essex, James Reeves, Sam Hughes and John White.