Dear Editor,

I think that the move to make Portmore our 15th parish is a ridiculous idea. It doesn’t even have the services of other municipalities.

The Government seems to have decided to make it a parish and is rushing to inject services. The fact is that Portmore has been neglected over the years by both major political parties. And I don’t get the impression that the citizens of Portmore have had much say in their development.

Portmore started out as a dormitory city for Kingston. Therefore, services weren’t a priority in the late 60s and 70s. Once we had abandoned the idea of dormitory city, serious urban planning should have been done.

Portmore, with a population of about 500,000, doesn’t have a hospital. The parties should be ashamed of themselves. It’s a disgrace. Nothing but talk!

Clarendon, with less than half of Portmore’s population, has three hospitals. Portland, Hanover, and St Thomas, parishes with populations under 100,000, each have a hospital.

For me, Portmore is a municipality in the parish of St Catherine. However, nearly two decades after it was granted municipality status in 2003, it still does not have a hospital. Let me list some of the services that a municipality should have:

health services — hospitals and clinics

fire stations

police stations and a court

markets

schools

libraries

a cemetery

shopping areas

good public passenger transport

parks, green areas, and playing fields

a cultural centre

a monthly/quarterly newspaper from the mayor’s office

The list above is by no means exhaustive, but there should be enough schools for students not to be forced to leave the area to attend primary and high school. Citizens should be able to move freely via public transportation from community to community. For instance, they should be able to travel from Independence City to Hellshire without any hassle.

My main beef is with health services and markets.

Ideally, Portmore should have about three hospitals. However, I would be prepared to accept two. No less! We are dealing with demography here, people.

Now we are hearing of the construction of a state-of-the-art market in Gregory Park because there is available land. An afterthought!

The area for which the market is slated is not centrally located and the residents of Cedar Grove Estate are up in arms against the idea.

Is it true that this idea was mooted five years ago and the residents rejected it? All this could have been avoided if proper planning had been done for the various communities. Shopping areas, parks, etc should have been designated before houses were built.

And we should be talking about at least six markets.

When I speak of six markets, I’m not speaking about permanent markets. There could be two permanent markets and four neighbourhood markets. These neighbourhood markets would not necessarily operate every day. They could, for instance, operate on Wednesdays/weekends in specially designated areas. On a Sunday, they could operate from 7:00 am – 1:00/2:00 pm.

The residents of Portmore who commute to Kingston and Spanish Town might prefer to do their shopping on the weekend.

Portmore, with its complexities, also deserves its own police division. It should not be a part of St Catherine South.

What I have said above regarding Portmore holds good for other townships like Spanish Town, May Pen, and Mandeville. Portmore could have been a model for other townships.

I now reside far from Portmore, but I am sufficiently annoyed by the nonsense of over five decades.

Norman W M Thompson

norms74160@gmail.com