KINGSTON, Jamaica— Vendors who conduct business at the Papine market in St Andrew now have access to a clean environment following its renovation.

The three-week project saw the repositioning of the garbage bay, painting of the space, sanitation of the market and expansion to facilitate more vendors.

Mayor of Kingston, Andrew Swaby on Sunday urged vendors to maintain the newly-improved market space.

“We are expecting vendors to maintain the cleanliness and so on. We are expecting vendors to pay their market fees because it’s from their market fees that we can maintain the place. We’ll be having many more conversations with them to make sure that we work together to achieve what we all want to achieve,” he said.

Swaby noted that there is less congestion outside the market area since the vendors have been relocated.

“We’re going to watch it, but so far for now, we have seen some orderly way. For example, right on the market road there, I see where the taxi beds are in a queue now, and what we’re trying to do is facilitate easier access also to one of the premier hospitals (University Hospital of the West Indies, UHWI) that we have because clearly it has been congested on the road. So we want to make sure that that situation doesn’t exist anymore,” he said.

Helma Thompson, senior director of nursing at the UHWI, hailed the recent renovation of the market as a major improvement.

“It certainly is a major improvement. What has been mentioned by many and had been a major challenge was the garbage collection area, which was really not as it ought to have been. [We] usually have the spillover, the odours, and that affected person’s passageway there. But now that I’ve come this morning and I’ve seen the new developments, that area has really been transformed. And within the inner components here, you have clear corridors, and things are well laid out. Persons are able to go appropriately about their business. So it is really a major improvement,” Thompson emphasised.

Thompson said she hopes that the renovated space will be maintained.

Vendors who conduct business at the market have also hailed the renovated space as a “blessing”.

“Coming into the market is like a beauty; it’s like a joy, I tell you. I’ve been out on the road for years, but I never knew coming here would bring so much success and growth. It’s a blessing. The man does a lot of work on the bathroom, on the outside, on the back part of the market; they wash the roof; they do a lot of work,” said Karesa Nelson, who has been operating as a vendor at the Papine market for eight years.