MINISTER of State in the Ministry of Local Government and Community Development Colin Fagan says great things are in store for Portmore as there are a number of rehabilitation projects currently taking place in his municipality, while others are to come on stream.

Fagan, the member of Parliament for St Catherine South East, which includes several Portmore communities, was speaking at this week’s Jamaica Observer Monday Exchange.

“We are decommissioning the Bridgeport and Waterford area sewage plants and all that sewage will go directly to the Soapberry plant for processing,” he told Observer reporters and editors.

He said the project, which will see above 85 per cent of the total decommissioning of plants in St Catherine South East, comes at a cost of just under $3 billion dollars and will also include the decommissioning of other sewage plants in the municipality, such as the plant in Hamilton Gardens.

“These plants would have outlived their usefulness as they were built in the early 1970s to just support the Independence City and Edgewater communities and then later the Bridgeport and Waterford communities,” Fagan said. He said, however, that over the years more communities have developed in the growing municipality and it has become too much for the plants to handle.

In addition to the sewage plant decommissioning, various road rehabilitation efforts are taking place. Fagan said the Port Henderson bridge is to be rehabilitated as it is in a “bad shape”, in reference to the frame and base sections of the bridge. He added that even though the surface of the bridge is in good shape, to keep the structure up as it is will result in disaster.

The member of parliament said efforts are being made to get the bailey bridge up to prevent traffic congestion while work is being done on the Port Henderson bridge.

He said commuters who need to get to Greater Portmore and surrounding areas can use the bailey bridge which will be operated as a one way both in the mornings and afternoons until construction on the new Port Henderson bridge is completed.

Fagan also mentioned that the road around the town centre will also be rehabilitated “in the near future”.

The MP also indicated that proposals for a “first world market” in Portmore were still alive, adding that discussions now surround the market’s location.

At the same time, he declined to speculate about a start date for construction of the Portmore Transportation Centre, which is to built on same land for the proposed Climate Change Park. He said, however, that negotiations were far advanced concerning the construction of a transport centre, which will be similar to the transportation centre in Half-Way-Tree, St Andrew.

“With the opening soon of the new highway… it is a great idea to have a market so that persons coming from Ocho Rios could come into Portmore to see what it is like and get some shopping done, then head back,” Fagan explained.

Private investors, in the meantime, have started rehabilitation the old Forum Hotel and its surrounding cottages, which were bought for more than $350 million.

“We are contemplating doing a marina to encourage water sports and we can use the canal that runs adjacent to the cottages,” Fagan told the Monday Exchange.

Fishers who used the areas surrounding the Forum Hotel to support their livelihood, have already been relocated to a fishing village on Port Henderson Road , built for them by Urban Development Corporation.