Mandeville, Manchester – Even as the Manchester Parish Council gets set for another phase of its drive to upgrade the centre of this south central town, uncertainty remains regarding plans for the historic courthouse.

The Manchester Parish Council and many of the town’s leading citizens want the 197-year-old building to be converted to a museum.

Under that plan, a new courthouse would be built on 40 acres of land donated many years ago by bauxite/alumina company Alpart, at Kingsland, just west of Mandeville.

“For us (Manchester Parish Council), we feel that….. it (courthouse building) should be a museum and (in sync) with the other things that we are putting in place in that town centre,” Mayor of Mandeville Brenda Ramsay told a recent Rotary Club meeting in Mandeville.

However, Ramsay told Rotarians that there were opposing views on the matter.

She later explained to the Jamaica Observer Central that there was a strong feeling among many people that removal of the justice and court facilities to Kingsland would unfairly inconvenience ordinary people.

For one thing, she said, some argue that additional transportation costs would inevitably occur. Also, she said, many seem to believe that aesthetically, the courthouse belongs at the centre of town.

But according to Ramsay, removal of the courthouse would assist the sustainable and orderly development of the town centre.

“As it is, there is no place to park and there is just a lot of congestion,” said Ramsay.

The Mayor told the Observer Central that at the proposed new location there would be “far more space, better accommodation for judges, attorneys, persons seeking justice, everybody”.

Under the original plan the donated land would house a state-of-the-art regional justice centre including the Mandeville Courthouse and related organisations serving Manchester, Clarendon and St Elizabeth.

“We should have had that courthouse under construction now. Things have changed and times have changed. We are still trying to see whether we can get that back on the front burner…,” Ramsay said at the Rotarian function.     

Rotarian Homer Brodie, who serves as a lay magistrate in petty session court at the Mandeville courthouse, claimed the facility poses great danger in its current state.

“I really pray that we don’t have a fire in that courthouse,” he said.

Brodie told the Observer Central that the whole building is “dilapidated” and extremely susceptible to natural disasters including hurricanes.  

Long-serving Custos of Manchester Dr Gilbert Allen, who demitted office in 2011, also had plans for the courthouse to be transformed into a museum.

The donation of land for the regional justice centre was reportedly made under his leadership.

“It is our dream that one day the restored courthouse will become the parish museum and that court will be held in the new justice centre…,” Allen said at an appreciation function organised in his honour by the Manchester Chapter of the Lay Magistrates’ Association of Jamaica about two years ago.

 Ramsay told Observer Central that phase two of the Mandeville town centre restoration and upgrade is to take place this month. She said contractors have been selected, taxi operators told they will have to relocate and parish council-owned shops which were rented to retailers have been closed.

 Phase two of the upgrading project is being funded mainly by the Caribbean Local Economic Development programme.