UNITY HALL, St James — Over 30 fisherfolk at the Rum Bottle Bay Fishing Beach here are calling on their parliamentary representative, Clive Mullings, to swiftly intervene on their behalf in an attempt to save them from being booted from the facilty by private developers.

“Since 1963, I have been fishing and using this beach now. Me never talk to him (Mullings) but as far as I know we want the beach and we need somebody to stand up for us. We need the beach. The kids coming, they need fishing, we need somebody to stand up for us because we need fishing. We need the beach,” said 69-year-old fisherman, Nathan Gordon.

Seventy-five-year-old William Heat expresed similiar sentiments. “I have been fishing here from me a young boy and we never been disturbed. We don’t have anywhere else to go, so our livelihood going spoil up,” he said.

The incensed fishers, some of whom have occupied the fishing beach for over 50 years, told the Observer West on Tuesday that their fears have been triggered recently when they turned up one morning to find the entrance to the facility chained and padlocked.

On account of that, they fumed, they were unable to drive onto the beach and were consequently burdened to transport gallons of petrol from the road to their engine boats on the beach.

The fishers also said the dumping of construction materials such as marl, led to the destruction of the fishing stock.

The Observer West team was also shown heaps of solid waste, including medical waste such as syringes, dumped on the beach.

Efforts to get a comment from Mullings, a practising attorney-at-law, proved futile.