KETTERING, Trelawny – Residents in this community yesterday mounted a demonstration to protest the smashing of two illegal buildings which were recently erected in defiance of a 1995 court order prohibiting squatting on lands belonging to developer Keith Russell.

The unoccupied buildings – one wooden, the other concrete – are among several which would eventually have to come down under the court order giving Russell the right to repossess the land.

The Sunday Observer was told that the police totally demolished the wooden building and damaged the walls of the concrete structure.

Yesterday’s demonstration proved very disturbing to Jamaica Labour Party caretaker for Northern Trelawny, Dennis Meadows, who quickly stepped in with a view to resolving the dispute which Russell, a former parliamentarian, has been trying to resolve through a relocation exercise to land that the Government identified in Daniel Town last year.

“As I understand it, they (the people) were promised that they would be relocated to lands in Daniel Town last year in August,” said Meadows. “However, they are telling me now that they were not aware of any such plan.”

But Russell told the Sunday Observer that he found this very disturbing.

Meadows said he would tour the proposed relocation lands today with the angry residents.

“We will be going to see if the lands are suitable in terms of accessibility and other basics, because I would never want to see this situation get ugly or replicate what happened in Flanker,” said Meadows.