DUMFRIES, St James – Member of Parliament for East Central St James Edmund Bartlett is upbeat over the proposed establishment of a communication centre in Dumfries as part of the proposed $2billion commercial and housing project to be developed on a 50-acre parcel of land in the community.

” I am very excited of having perhaps the first communication centre in rural St James here, where you could tie in postal facilities with Internet cafe facilities and allow for much of the inter-connectivity that people desire which are now miles away to access,” Bartlett told the Observer West during a tour of the site of the multi-million project on Sunday.

The MP who is also the tourism minister noted that the massive project is “taking shape,” adding that the plans for the town has been “posted” for the perusal of the residents of Dumfries and surrounding communities.

Meanwhile, Housing Agency of Jamaica (HAJ) president Joseph Shoucair who accompanied Bartlett on the tour of the proposed development site noted that preparatory work has commenced on the project and expressed confidence that work will intensify next year.

‘” We would expect that in calendar year 2012 we will start the development . When I say start the development, I mean in an aggressive manner because we are going to start preliminary work from now. You will see us clearing areas for roadways and examining various points and different designs, I am sure next year we will start aggressively with the development,” he explained.

The project will be established on lands which were once used for sugar cane cultivation by the management of Hampden Sugar Estate.