CLARENDON, Jamaica — Residents in Clarendon have again resorted to blocking roads, this time in the community of Decoy in Ebony Park, demanding that the thoroughfare be immediately fixed.

They took to the street as early as 6:00 am on Monday, October 10, to register their displeasure with their local representative, Councillor Uphel Purcell (York Town Division, PNP) and his seeming inability to give them a proper road.

“From mi live here a suh the road stay and all we get are promises and the road naa fix. And every time we get promises we take it because we want the road,” said one resident who gave her name as Dyer.

She said students and administrators who work at the HEART NSTA & Ebony Grove institutions have been among those severely impacted.

“We need the road to be fixed, it’s been like this for a long time and it’s getting worse and worse. We need it to be fixed right now,” she said.

“We don’t care which [political] party want to fix it, we just want it fixed right now,” was the appeal from a man who gave his name as Francis, and said he too is a long-time resident of the community.”

In addition, Campbell, who is a taxi operator, bemoaned the impact of costly repairs to his vehicle each time it is damaged on the pot-hole riddled road.

“A long time the councillor a tell us it a guh fix. We front end a lick out every minute, we need attention and representation. The councillor lives here in this community and use this road every day and all now it can’t fix,” he grumbled.

Councillor Purcell empathised with the protestors. But, he then pointed his finger at the central government.

“The roads are in a bad condition and we can see the reason why they have blocked it this morning. From May, the Minister of Local Government agreed with us as councillors to give us a road in our divisions. I gave this road to be done,” he said.

“Unfortunately, up until today, we have been making requests for the funding to be made available and yet to no avail. So, the citizens have come out this morning to send a clear message.”

“We are going to see if we can marl and grade a section by now and tomorrow and we’ll see how best we can work with the residents to get the children to school and other workers who need to get to work,” he added.

He then appealed for residents to “be calm” as they move to do remedial work by Tuesday.

The roadblock was eventually cleared by the police.

Last Monday, residents in Frankfield, Clarendon blocked the main road demanding that the Southwood Bridge that was washed away in 2017 be replaced.

Taxi operators also blocked the main thoroughfare known as May Pen Woods, demanding that the drains be cleaned, following heavy rains that caused severe flooding in the area.