AS soil erosion widens the gaping hole that is the mosquito-infested Mother White Gully, residents of Rose Town have threatened to take to the streets if the problem is not addressed soon.

“The MP, Mr Omar Davies, the councillor and the mayor, Desmond McKenzie, all of them know the condition of the place and all now (nothing has been done)?” one angry resident asked. “If them don’t do something soon, then we a go block Spanish Town Road.”

Earlier this year, Mayor McKenzie – accompanied by a Kingston and St Andrew Corporation team and councillor for the division, Bonito Brown -visited the Mother White Gully and promised that work would be done to clean up and repair the waterway. However, no work has been carried out so far and this has not gone down well with the residents.

“Them taking too long and if them delay any longer, then we a go take it upon ourselves to make Jamaica know how we are being treated,” one community member warned.

The gully is a massive mosquito breeding site and pools of stagnant water often settle in it where it passes by Dove Street within the community. During a recent visit, residents complained bitterly about the effect this was having on their children. Three of them, presented for inspection, had multiple rashes and minor swelling on their skin.

“Every pickney who live pan the gully bank sick,” one woman told the Observer.

Residents also face the physical danger of the unstable earth near the gully as deep caverns are etched into what used to be its walls. The soil has been eroded to less than a foot from the roadway in some places and residents fear that the road could cave in at any moment.

An elderly man has already been forced to relocate as the gully threatened to swallow his modest home.

The gully has also become the repository for mounds of garbage, as old bed frames, plastics chairs and other forms of garbage, line its insides. Residents say refuse tends to wash down the channel, ending up near their community which, they complained, is being neglected because of their voting pattern.

“Everybody know say we a Labourite ’round yah so, but dat no mean say the children must get sick or the gully can’t fix. All of us are people,” one irate resident shouted.

But the gully is not their only area of concern.

According to Maxine Adams, the JLP candidate for the area, 55 of the community’s 58 streetlights are not working and their roads are badly in need of repair.