MANDEVILLE, Manchester — An announcement by Prime Minister Dr Andrew Holness that the Government intends to construct a new park in Mandeville has not gone down well with the town’s mayor Donovan Mitchell.

The mayor has also bristled at the prime minister’s suggestion that municipal corporations lack efficiency and will be among the first State entities to receive attention under the Administration’s new Streamlining Process for Efficiency and Economic Development (SPEED) programme.

Holness spoke to both issues Saturday night in an address to business and political leaders at the Manchester Chamber of Commerce’s awards banquet attended by Mayor Mitchell.

“You come up on bureaucratic hurdles, particularly in permitting and approvals. I am here to tell you — I am glad I am saying this when the mayor is here — our parish councils will be the first target of the SPEED initiative. They are absolutely important to the local economy in how fast they facilitate business and investment,” Holness said.

“We will ensure that our parish councils move in concert with business to ensure that businesses that are ready to invest are not inhibited and hampered,” he added.

In relation to the park, which Holness had first announced in his 2025/26 Budget Presentation, the prime minister reiterated that the Government, through the National Housing Trust, intends to construct a park within the “curtilage” of Mandeville and name it based on “national ethos”.

“We are looking at Brooks Park, but if the chamber of commerce or any other stakeholder has any other idea, it is still in the embryonic stage and now is the time to make your views known and what we have decided to do is that for all our parks we will make them symbolically to honour what I call national ethos,” said Holness.

Pointing out that emancipation is important in our history, Holness posited that harmony and resilience are important ethea to Jamaica.

“I wonder what we should call the park in Mandeville,” Holness said.

“Brooks Park,” replied Mitchell, who was seated near the podium.

Holness then responded with other suggestions.

“What about industry, innovation, solidarity, all kinds of names that could reflect something on our national ethos. I wanted to make this announcement here, that Mandeville will have its parish park that will be equal [to] or better than the ones that we have built before,” he said.

However, the following day, at a People’s National Party (PNP) meeting in Royal Flat, Mitchell voiced opposition to the plan for a new park.

“I hear you come up with a big plan about a park in Mandeville; Mandeville no want no park, we have Cecil Charlton Park and we will not disrespect Cecil Charlton who laboured in this parish, who worked with us; and nobody [can] come and remove that park,” Mitchell said.

He also said that Brooks Park, named in hounour of the town’s first mayor, Stanley Edwin Brooks, should not be touched.

“SE Brooks, whether him a Labourite or PNP or no ‘P’, leave Brooks Park for the people of Manchester. None of them cannot come here and remove what is here,” he said, while pointing out that Brooks Park is located in Manchester North Western.

The history of the south-central town shows that on November 1, 1961, one year before the colonial British Empire loosened its grip on Jamaica, Mandeville was raised to mayoral status with Brooks as its first mayor.

Mitchell also suggested that focus should be placed on plans, which have been shelved, for a three-acre property at the centre of Mandeville where the old, rundown market is located, to be redeveloped as a modern, multi-storey complex to house the market, through a public-private partnership.

“If you really want to do something for Manchester and for Mandeville you will tell [Local Government Minister] Desmond McKenzie that I, Donovan Mitchell, say the plan we have for the Mandeville market that he has thrown away, put it in a shelf or file 13, take it up, dig it up, and let us talk about Mandeville town,” he said.

Responding to the prime minister’s comments about municipal corporations, Mitchell said: “I hear you say that the municipal corporations are holding up sub-divisions and building plans and all of that… I can tell you that is NEPA (National Environment and Planning Agency), Water Commission, NWA (National Works Agency). You are the minister with responsibility for those agencies. We at the Manchester Municipal Corporation, we are now boasting a 93 per cent turnaround for 90 days for any plans that come to the council.”

Declaring that he felt “disrespected”, the mayor said, “I lead a team of councillors that is second to none in the whole of Jamaica… I want to remind them that the auditor general of Jamaica says that Manchester Parish Council is the only council that has their accounts up to 2023. That is leadership by example.”

Mitchell, who is also the PNP aspirant for Manchester Central, is expected to contest the seat now held by the Jamaica Labour Party’s Rhoda Crawford.

He told PNP supporters and members of the party’s hierarchy that the PNP “must win” the next parliamentary election this year to fulfil plans for Mandeville.

The entrance to Brooks Park in Mandeville. (Photo: Kasey Williams)