LITTLE BAY, Westmoreland

President of the Violet Communities Association, Jess Beach, is calling for the intervention of Prime Minister Andrew Holness in settling a land dispute between residents of Little Bay and Brighton and the alleged property owner who is said to be a foreigner.

“So, what we need is for the Government to come in fully, not halfway. So, all we are asking for is for the Government, Mr Prime Minister [Andrew Holness] and all the other authorities to have some mercy on the little people too, give us a chance. We made a start of developing [the area], we had an intention [to purchase] and we still do,” stated Beach, adding “there is a lot of potential in here between us and the Government and even the owner.”

“The Government runs like how a family household should run. The Government and the Opposition should take care of its children who are the people and the workers. So, if there is a problem with the kids and the workers, they have to see what the problem is and solve it before it gets flustered. But this is what happened, it gets so flustered that all we get is bullying from the people who claim that we are squatters which we aren’t squatters. We are the developers, we are the ones who came in here and let them see that the area is covered with corals and water underneath it. Environmental people don’t know the fullness…,” Beach further argued.

Beach, who says she has been living in the area for the past 30 years, believes that there is enough land for the investors and the current occupants of the Little Bay property.

She argued that the residents want to develop the area, get ownership and pay their taxes so that they can move on with their lives, “but we got sabotaged along the way because we don’t know everything about the law and we don’t have the right people to educate us and defend us in that.”

She was making reference to the law which gives squatters the right to claim legal ownership by adverse possession of private lands they occupy for 12 years or more and 60 years in the case of Crown (Government) property undisturbed.

On Monday, residents came out in their numbers and staged a peaceful demonstration in Little Bay. They also chained the gates to the Little Bay All-Age and Infant School. The gates were later opened following the intervention of the police.

The residents’ call comes in the wake of eviction notices posted across sections of roughly 800 acres of the Little Bay and the adjoining Brighton communities recently.

The notices — served following a Supreme Court order dated October 21, 2021 — state in part that “you must immediately vacate premises you now occupy as a squatter in Little Bay and Brighton… you will be evicted without further notice.”

The notices are said to be a follow-up to a June 2018 court eviction order.

Richard Douglas McLeod, a fisherman from Little Bay, who said he has been living in the area for the past 40 years, told the Observer West that “the people chained the school because of the eviction notice and nobody paid them [residents] any attention.”

“No MP [Member of Parliament], nobody came down. So, the people have to get attention from somewhere. So, they come to the school and lock it up in the morning,” explained McLeod, arguing that while the community has no interest in stopping their children from learning, they had no other option.

Brighton resident 55-year-old Derick Anderson told the Observer West that while he is not against someone owning the property, somewhere must be provided for those occupying the land for years.

The 70-year-old Beach noted that while the notice targets a few, all living illegally on the property will be impacted.

“There are a lot of people who have been living here for over 50 years that have never been disturbed by the owner. It is just we who were in court that triggered off that,” she argued.

She informed that it has been over a decade that the matter has been tied up in court.

In 2011, the court granted writs of possession to the individual living overseas and the eviction of at least 37 squatters.

Efforts by the Observer West to contact the owners of the property were unsuccessful.