ST James Deputy Mayor Michael Troupe has served notice he would personally demonstrate against his People’s National Party (PNP) to dramatise his disgust with the state of the Granville to Retirement main road in the western parish.

Troupe, four-term councillor for the Granville Division, angrily supported a resolution passed at last week’s meeting of the Granville Community Development Committee (GCDC), saying residents would stage a protest demonstration if the busy corridor was not repaired by Independence Day, August 6, 2012.

Councillor Troupe and the GCDC said the awful state of the Granville-Retirement main road was now threatening the commercial viability and the health of the community.

The Granville Community Development Committee called a special meeting to discuss the road, ahead of the planned Granville Homecoming scheduled to be held between July 24 and August 31, this year. The resolution called on the minister of transport and works to immediately commence work on the $164.5-million roadway rehabilitation project under the Jamaica Development Infrastructure Programme (JDIP).

“The project is 65 per cent complete and is now threatened to be washed away by the coming rain,” O Dave Allen, public relations officer for the Granville CDC said in a news release.

Allen used the occasion to salute citizens and the police for the marked reduction in crime and violence in the community, particular the number of murders compared with last year. He urged the community to take advantage of the window of opportunity to unite and to benefit from the development that is taking place in the Montego Bay South Corridor.

Granville was one of the most successful post-Emancipation villages with a reputation for having some of the first ex-slaves to purchase property after coming down from the mountains. It was also known for its strong support of the 1938 mass riots.