South Trelawny to get fire station
Minister of Local Government and Community Development, Desmond McKenzie, has announced plans to construct a fire station to serve the hilly communities of southern Trelawny.
He said that the process to build the new facility will commence in the 2020/2021 financial year, which gets under way on April 1.
The Minister was speaking at the handover of a home for an indigent resident of Stettin, South Trelawny, on January 29.
He informed that land has been identified for the construction of the new fire station, which will bring the number of facilities in the parish to two.
The new station will serve Ulster Spring, Albert Town, Wait-a-Bit, Warsop, Troy, Stettin and other areas.
McKenzie, in underscoring the need for the facility, noted that if a fire starts in the area, a fire unit would have to travel from as far as Falmouth or Christiana in the neighbouring parish of Manchester to battle the blaze.
“We know that this part of Trelawny is challenging, and in 2016, we indicated our intention to build new fire stations in certain sections of the country. The Jamaica Fire Brigade, on a visit with the Member of Parliament for the area (South Trelawny), has identified a location to build a fire station,” he said.
He noted that the Ministry “will be soliciting the support of the municipal corporation to assist in the technical aspect of [the project], working closely with the Jamaica Fire Brigade”.
Minister McKenzie, in his address, also committed to constructing a drop-in centre to serve homeless and mentally ill persons in South Trelawny.
“I am going to ask [Secretary of the Board of Supervision] Treka Lewis to get the poor relief officer to do an assessment of what the needs are in terms of the street people, and I will give a commitment to you that in the next financial year, we will put one [drop-in centre] in this part of Trelawny,” he said.
He said that a drop-in centre that is being built in Falmouth is almost complete and will officially open in short order.