Dear Editor,

While the people of the world celebrate and wish each other a happy new 2024, we the residents of Nightingale Grove Scheme, Gutters, St Catherine, are void of the happiness.

We have been suffering the absence of asphalted roads for over two decades. Our sadness has left us with tearless cries as all the moisture has left ours eyes.

We feel like black sheep as we watch nearby communities enjoy their new asphalted roads.

Our hearts bleed to hear our vehicles scream when the undercarriage make contact with the stone tracks we have to drive on.

No one would have thought a community would worry when the sky opens to release liquid blessings on those below. However, we, the residents of Nightingale Grove Scheme, are faced with three fears when it rains — flood waters reaching our houses, ‘swimming pools’ in the roads, and the nuisance of water-borne insects that cause dengue.

The scheme is rather an old one and has many elderly who are not able to manage walking on stones. In cases of emergency there are two things at stake, the health of the sick/injured and a vehicle that will need a mechanic’s assistance.

The situation is so bad that expectant mothers opt to stay outside of the community when their due date is near. Residents have to revert to paying the Spring Village taxis double fare to turn off into the scheme in order to reach their homes.

Our roads have been downgraded from ‘bad’ to an ‘awful track’ that not even animals meet up to play in the community anymore.

It is rather unfair to the residents of Nightingale Grove Scheme, who are tax-paying citizens of Jamaica, to be subjected to this sort of treatment.

The value of our homes have sunk to the level of the dirt on the track on which we are forced to drive. We believe we have been dished a plate of grave injustice.

To know that our Member of Parliament is Everald Errol Warmington, the minister without portfolio in the Ministry of Economic Growth and Job Creation with responsibility for works, makes it very disturbing.

We believe we have suffered enough and would be grateful if the situation could be resolved and renovated for 2024.

On behalf of residents of

Nightingale Grove Scheme