Hanover residents clamour for light, water, better roads
Published:Tuesday | November 15, 2022 | 12:09 AMHopeton Bucknor/Gleaner Writer
WESTERN BUREAU:
DOZENS OF disgruntled residents from Hanover took their protest over poor road conditions and the lack of water and electricity in their communities to sections of the North Coast Highway on Monday morning, blocking sections of the roadway that leads from Montego Bay to Negril, causing gridlock for miles.
A police-military team cleared the debris and took two men into custody for questioning in connection with the fires lit on the highway.
The residents, who hail from Cold Spring, Pondside, Cascade, Claremont and other adjoining communities, told The Gleaner that they have been suffering because of these issues over the past few years and were now fed up.
Armed with placards, they lit fires with used tyres along sections of the roadway at Mosquito Cove and Kew Bridge, and also mounted roadblocks with trees, boulders and old refrigerators.
Andrea Purkiss, a resident from the affected areas, told The Gleaner that the communities have been neglected by the political representatives.
“We are decent, law-abiding citizens from rural Jamaica. We have been forgotten,” Purkiss stated.
“I traverse the Cascade to Montego Bay route daily with my daughter and it has been a burden; it has been a burden. ... I have been contemplating whether or not to continue living where I live,” she expressed.
“We need roads. It is affecting even the police that are here, or the soldiers that are here clearing the rubble. They are having issues solving crime. The police can’t get to us, the ambulances can’t get to us, we can’t get our families to hospitals in good time. We are decent, law-abiding, working-class Jamaicans that need roads to get to work to provide for our families,” Purkiss explained.
“We need roads. We really didn’t want to come on the highway because we don’t want to slow down production anywhere at all, but nobody is coming to us, so we will continue to come on the highway ... . This is not a one-man show. This is not a JLP-PNP thing,” she added, referencing the governing Jamaica Labour Party and the opposition People’s National Party.
“We have Labourites and PNP in the crowd. This is about rural Jamaica – Cascade, Jericho, Cold Spring, Claremont, and the list goes on. We need help,” she pleaded.
Another female resident shared: “You would not believe the sight of the main road which leads up to the Merlene Ottey High School in Pondside. It’s a shame and disgrace.”
She said the community also lacks running water and that residents are charged up to $24,000 to fill a large water tank in their community.
One motorist, who resides in Cascade, said the roads in her community were in a poor state.
“We have to be driving in riverbeds because those are not roads,” she said. “And each and every day, our cars’ front ends are destroyed, yet we don’t see anyone to address us.”