A pair of Kamloops city councillors went door knocking today on West Victoria Street to hear from business owners affected by construction.

Mike O’Reilly says he and Bill Sarai stopped and talked to more than half the businesses in that corridor where road work has gone on since mid April.

“Definitely some mixed feedback. Some people were down in sales, some people were up in sales. But the one common thing we heard from all of them was that they knew it needed to be done. And frankly this project is for the betterment of the whole city, and they all knew that, which was really refreshing,” O’Reilly says.

“We plan on going out again in the next month or so and talking to other businesses, then we’ll go back and circle around again; this project is done in four phases. And the number-one thing we’re letting all the business owners know who we’ve spoken to is to reach out to us. That’s what we’re here for.”

The city is spending $13-and-a-half million dollars to replace underground infrastructure and do other upgrades to that corridor.

Recently, the city also hired a liaison to work with businesses affected by road work through that corridor.

Was time well spent finding out how the local west Victoria businesses are coping 3 months into the project. Very informative talks, and I’m thinking everyone agrees, that when this project is finished it will be a very nice entrance to our Downtown . https://t.co/k7lK0oGuBG

— Bill Sarai (@BillSarai) July 30, 2019