Road to nowhere
Residents of Freeman’s Hall fear five decades of neglect could push them back into Stone Age
Published:Saturday | February 24, 2024 | 12:07 AMChristopher Thomas/Gleaner Writer
WESTERN BUREAU:
Residents of Freeman’s Hall, Trelawny, are accusing their political representatives of abandoning them for 50 years, citing the degradation of their community’s roadways and the lack of an adequate water supply, street lights, and employment opportunities as proof that they have been forgotten.
Freeman’s Hall is one of several farming communities nestled in the Cockpit Country in Trelawny Southern and is only a few minutes’ drive from the neighbouring Albert Town and Ulster Spring. However, the road coming from that direction is riddled with potholes, significantly slowing the commute to a virtual crawl.
On the other side of Freeman’s Hall, vehicular access to the neighbouring district of Joe Hut has been cut off as what was once a roadway is now a bushy track, resulting in them having to take a longer route to Joe Hut.
Mark McHardy, a 70-year-old retired resident and a member of the Freeman’s Hall Community Development Committee, told The Gleaner that the last time the roads in the area got any attention was during the tenure of the People’s National Party’s (PNP) Albert Belinfanti, who served as the member of parliament (MP) between 1967 and 1976.
“The two entrances to the community – the Stettin entrance and the Ulster Spring entrance, they began good, they looked good, asphalted, but the middle of the road is in a deplorable condition. It is a main road because there are mile markers along the road, the original cemented mile markers,” McHardy recalled.
“It is a depressed area; it is forgotten. The only time we are remembered is on the eve of an election day. If people did not do their own subsistence farming, they would not be able to live … . Rather than progressing, we are going back to the Stone Age,” McHardy added.
Venisha Pryce has lived in Freeman’s Hall for 40 years.
ACCUSATIONS
She accused the immediate former MP, the Jamaica Labour Party’s (JLP) Marisa Dalrymple-Philibert, of paying scant regard to the area.
“Marisa Dalrymple-Philibert say she a ‘five-star general’ and she say she nah fix Freeman’s Hall road because down here is a ‘die-hearted’ PNP area. Look on the road to come from Albert Town. We have school and church down here, but they won’t pay we a mind down here,” she said. “It was some time in last year, citizens had to get cement and concrete part of it; it was well bad. You could drop and break your foot if you are coming here, and from Albert Town to come here is darkness, so we need more street lights.”
The Gleaner attempted unsuccessfully to get a response concerning those accusations from Dalrymple-Philibert, who resigned as MP of Trelawny Southern in September 2023 due to criminal charges over the omission of a Mercedes-Benz from her statutory declaration filings between 2015 and 2021.
Another key concern for residents of this rural district is the lack of a consistent water supply, despite the community being close to the local Quashie River, where residents often do their laundry.
“One pump house is around the other side, which dem say dem a go fix up to run back water. When it nearer to election, you see dem come dig out trench – and mash up the road and nothing more – fi run pipe,” said Pryce, who told The Gleaner that she and other residents have to pay upwards of $12,000 for a truckload of water.
In 2017, the Environmental Foundation of Jamaica approved a $5-million sustainable water source project for Freeman’s Hall. That project resulted in the construction of a 15,000-gallon concrete storage tank, primarily for the benefit of the Freeman’s Hall Primary and Infant School.
The Gleaner understands that the administrators sometimes allow residents to access water from the tank, but the wider community still struggles and at times the administrators padlock the school gate to restrict access.
Where employment opportunities are concerned, McHardy said that the closure of a banana boxing factory in the community has resulted in farmers having to take their produce elsewhere to earn an income.
‘NO SOURCE OF INCOME’
“The banana boxing plant was going on in the 1980s and 1990s, and everything was flourishing. All the farmers in Albert Town, Ulster Spring, and the surrounding districts would bring their bananas to the boxing plant and they could have a source of income every week or every two weeks,” he recalled. “But now, everything is gone. There is absolutely no source of income for the residents here other than a few bananas, a few yams, and subsistence farming.”
Pauline Foster-Grant, the outgoing councillor for the Ulster Spring division, in which Freeman’s Hall is situated, lamented that the community is in dire need of opportunities for growth and development. She said the community carries a stigma that affects younger residents’ employment opportunities.
“One of the things that I tried to do in my tenure, and almost succeeded, was that I tried to get a yam processing plant down there. The grant was approved, and it was supposed to make yam products like yam wine and yam cake. After a couple of months, mysteriously, the project was no longer approved. We tried to do water harvesting, the land was donated and we got a grant, and all of a sudden, it was no more,” Foster-Grant told The Gleaner.
“The young people have to use a different address, like in western Kingston; if you have a certain address, you can’t get ahead. Sometimes if you put a Freeman’s Hall address, you can’t get ahead because of the negative connotation, and Freeman’s Hall is not different from many communities. You have very stellar citizens there, just like everywhere else,” Foster-Grant added. “They need more infrastructure, they need jobs, they need businesses to come in and partner with them. But it is unfortunate that it’s almost like time has forgotten them.”
Falmouth Mayor Collen Gager, chairman of the Trelawny Municipal Corporation, insisted that attention has been given to Freeman’s Hall, including roadworks and water provision.
“The residents are expected to benefit from the project that should soon start at the Quashie River. That project is under Rural Water Supply Limited; they will be benefiting from that. I know, too, that there is work that was done on the Freeman’s Hall road. I wouldn’t be able to give you all of the particulars about the work, on how much work was done, as I don’t have that information where I am,” he told The Gleaner when contacted.
“I know that there is a lot of attention that is placed on the Freeman’s Hall area, a lot of attention, and the Quashie River was one of the projects that MP Dalrymple-Philibert was driving until she resigned, so I know that work is being done. That area is getting its fair share of attention like any other area,” Gager insisted.