Councillors take issue with ill-placed signs in Hanover
Published:Thursday | July 28, 2016 | 4:22 PM
The Hanover Parish Council is dissatisfied with the large number of ill-placed signs that have been erected by several corporate entities along the roadway between the communities of Negril and Hopewell in the parish.
According to Neville Clare, the councillor for the Lucea Division and deputy mayor of Lucea, some signs have been erected without the requisite fees being paid to the local authority, while other "parish welcome signs" have been incorrectly placed some miles from the parish boundaries.
"There is a trend I see taking place with respect to the erection of signs and the removal of parish boundaries," Clare said. "I speak first of Hopewell. There is a sign that is erected at Hopewell which says, 'Welcome to Hanover' on one side and 'Welcome to St James' on the other. It is illegal, and a move must be made to put a stop to persons erecting those signs.
"This thing started with TPDCo (Tourism Product Development Company), you know. At the Negril border with Westmoreland we see where TPDCo put some signs up that are representing that some areas that are in Hanover are in Westmoreland," said Clare. "And, if we don't put down our feet, we will have these things going on right across the parish. I am going to request that the National Land agency re-establish those boundaries so we don't infringe on the property rights. And I am going to request that those signs, including the one that says 'Welcome to Hanover' at Hopewell, be removed."
In Jamaica, parish borders are marked by a bridge, a river, or two large stone pillars. In Hanover, the Great River forms the eastern border between Hanover and St James. However, the western border with Westmoreland, which lies in Negril, is said to be at the Long Bay Beach Park or at a small bridge adjacent to Couples Swept Away Hotel.
At a recent meeting of the Negril Resort Board, Nerris Hawthorne, the chairman of the Lucea Development Initiative, also decried the placing of signs demarcating parish boundaries in sections of Negril, some a quarter of a mile from the exact parish boundary.