Falmouth to get new police station by yearend — Phillips
WESTERN BUREAU — National security minister, Peter Phillips said the construction of a new police station in Falmouth, Trelawny will start by the end of this year.
The security minister was responding to concerns raised by opposition spokesman on security, Derrick Smith, about the delay in getting the project off the ground.
In his address to the 59th annual conference of the Jamaica Police Federation in Trelawny last week, Smith noted that even though ground was broken last October for the new station, work was yet to begin.
“I am very concerned about the matter and I am wondering if the government will live up to its commitment to construct the new station,” Smith said.
But Phillips, while acknowledging the delay, said work would start as soon as negotiations between his ministry and the Ministry of Finance are completed and the detailed designs done.
“The work will definitely be undertaken this year,” Phillips stressed.
Shortly before demitting office last year, the former security minister, KD Knight, broke ground in Falmouth for a new divisional headquarters and a courthouse estimated to cost $200 million.
“One of the things that will result from the construction of this new building is that the police and all who have to deal with the police will be comfortable,” Knight had promised at the groundbreaking ceremony.
Over the past few years, several civic groups and the police officers operating in Trelawny have complained about the poor state of the Falmouth station.
Early last year, superintendent in charge of the parish, Jasmine Tomlinson-Brown expressed her displeasure at the conditions under which her team had to work, citing the leaky roofs of the guardroom and barracks, as well as the sleeping quarters’ broken floorboards.
In March, the security ministry spent over $1 million to carry out repair work on the station’s guardroom, canteen, roofs and cellblocks.
But according to officers attached to the station, while the conditions there have improved, they are still carrying out their duties under adverse conditions.
