Lagos warns developers against road cutting, encroachment

Lagos State Government has said it will sanction property developers and state officials who undermine the state’s planning approvals and encroach on the alignments of the regional road.

The Lagos State Governor, Babajide Sanwo-Olu, was reported in a statement as saying this during the inauguration of the construction of a regional road at Eti-Osa.

The road would link the VGC to Lekki and decongest the main Lekki-Epe Expressway, the statement said.

With the commencement of work on the road project, the statement said the governor was keeping the promise he made to Lagos residents.

Sanwo-Olu directed the Ministry of Physical Planning and Urban Development to sanction any state official found culpable in compromising the planning approval and right of way of the road.

He said, “The regional road alignment has been gazetted a long time ago, but we realise people deliberately flouted our approved plan for the road.

“I have instructed the Commissioner for Physical Planning and Urban Development to discipline and sanction officials that have been found culpable of compromising any form of approval of the right of way.

They will be punished with people who raise properties on the approved alignment.”

In a related development, the state government has warned developers in the state to desist from cutting roads to create access to their properties.

This warning was issued by the Commissioner for Physical Planning and Urban Development, Dr. Idris Salako, during routine monitoring of the Bourdillon environs in Ikoyi.

Salako said that Lagos State Government frowned on any act capable of setting the state back in its infrastructure development drive, such as the flagrant and unapproved cutting of roads witnessed in some parts of the state, especially the Ikoyi environs.

He expressed the displeasure that actors in the built environment that ought to know better the implications of such indiscriminate act for the sustainability of the environment were those perpetrating the illegal act.

Salako urged that where it became absolutely necessary to cut the road, it should be done strictly with the approval of the Ministry of Works and Infrastructure.

“Henceforth, any developer found engaging in indiscriminate cutting of road will be made to face stiff penalties,” he said.