Hanover development plan in six weeks
WESTERN BUREAU – The first draft of the development plan for the parish of Hanover should be ready within another six weeks, according to lecturer in Urban and Regional Planning at the University of Technology (UTech) Earl Bailey.
“The first draft of the plan should be ready by the end of August or the first week of September and will be submitted to the Parish Council and the Homecoming Foundation,” said Bailey, who heads the team developing the plan.
After the submission of the first draft, he said, the document would then be returned to his team, which would make the necessary changes and submit a second draft by the end of September.
The final draft, he added, would be submitted shortly afterwards.
Bailey was speaking with the Observer, Tuesday, after he presented the development plan at the inaugural Hanover Homecoming business forum in Negril.
The development plan, which is being undertaken by the Hanover Homecoming Foundation in collaboration with the parish’s local authority, will serve as a blueprint for sustained growth and development of the parish’s socio-cultural, ecological and economic life.
Work on the document, which is being developed at a cost of roughly $2 million, began in February with the collection of data from 2,000 residents in the major communities of Dias, Lucea, Askenish, Cascade, Hopewell, Ramble and Sandy Bay.
In April, workshops were held in Lucea, giving parish residents a chance to have some level of input in the development of the document.
Bailey told the Observer that a meeting will be held in Lucea, next month, where the data collected would be presented to the main stakeholders.
“At this meeting, we are going to ask the major stakeholders to help us identify the patterns and trends in the data and then make recommendations,” he explained.
When completed, the final draft of the development plan will be forwarded to the ministry of land and environment. The document will then be taken to Parliament where the legislative steps needed to make it a legal document will be completed.
