Prime Minister Andrew Holness said the aim of the National Housing Trust (NHT) is to build more houses at a faster pace to help reduce squatting.

Holness says there is still the notion among some Jamaicans that they can build a housing unit wherever they chose and the government is still obligated to deliver a range of essential services.

However, he says the cost of putting certain infrastructure in place is not practical, especially in cases where citizens choose to live on a hillside that is very steep or on the side of a gully.

The Prime Minister was speaking yesterday at the ground-breaking ceremony for the Villages of Colbeck Castle Phase 1 and 2 housing development in Old Harbour St Catherine.

He says approximately 2,000 housing solutions are to be constructed over the next three years on 394 acres of lands in Colbeck Castle extending to the Clarendon border.