ZION, Trelawny – Four schools – two high and two preparatory – were yesterday forced to close their doors, shutting out more than 3,000 students, after irate residents blocked the main road in the community to protest against its dreadful condition.

The affected schools were the William Knibb Memorial High, Holland High, Caldean Preparatory and the Dennis Tobin Preparatory.

From as early as 6:00 in the morning, scores of placard-waving residents used large guango trees, which they cut down along the roadway, old cars and other items to mount huge road blocks along several sections of the road.

The two entrances – one leading off the Martha Brae main road, and the other leading off a section of the North Coast Highway onto the Zion main road, which has been decorated with large potholes and pools of mud, were rendered impassable by the blockages staged by the demonstrators.

In the meantime, the two affected high schools said the roadblocks had set back preparations for internal end-of-year examinations which were set to start yesterday.

“We should have had our exams today, but we are unable to do that as students started arriving late; no vehicles could come to the school, and teachers were also affected. As a result we have decided to call off the exams today (yesterday) and tomorrow (today) if things are not okay,” said Roland Powell, acting principal of William Knibb Memorial High.

Meanwhile, the residents of the community, which has over the years supported the ruling People’s National Party, vowed to register their disapproval over the neglect of their road in the next elections.

“No road, no vote!” one resident shouted. “We don’t have around here nobody to talk to and if we don’t have no roads, no votes. he added.

“We need somebody to stand up for us. You see the pools of mud, we have to go through and we no hog,” said another resident.

Meanwhile, Garth Wilkinson, the PNP’s councillor for the Falmouth Division, blamed the deplorable state of the road on heavy units that had to travel through the community during the construction of a section of the North Coast Highway and the Holland High School.

Wilkinson said a section of the road was repaired before the beginning of the school year, and promised that further work would be done immediately.

The maintenance of that road is the responsibility of the Trelawny Parish Council, and falls in the Falmouth and Martha Brae divisions, represented by Wilkinson and Claudette Rickards, respectively.

Yesterday, chairman of the Trelawny Parish Council Jonathan Bartley said he was ashamed that nothing was done about the road by the two councillors.

“.There are funds available in their divisions that they can use at their discretion to deal with the road and they allowed people to reach to this point where they have to block the road,” Bartley said.