ROCKY POINT, Clarendon — Prime Minister Dr Andrew Holness has reiterated plans to develop a major aircraft maintenance and operations facility at Vernamfield, which he says will become a new industry for Clarendon.

“You have an asset sitting down there called Vernamfield. Mike Henry, much respect to him, was a big advocate for Vernamfield and we have the plans already,” Holness told a Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) constituency conference at Rocky Point in Clarendon South Eastern on Sunday.

Henry, a former Cabinet minister and outgoing Clarendon Central Member of Parliament, has long advocated that Vernamfield be developed into a major cargo logistic hub and airport.

But Holness told the conference that his Administration’s focus is on developing a new airport for Negril based on tourism.

“We put in place a team of consultants who studied it and gave us a plan, but when you look at the country’s air assets, our airport assets, we decided that we are going to go first with the development of a new airport in Negril, because from a strategic perspective, it gets the tourists into that side of the island very quickly.

“Once that has started, then the next airport asset that we are going to develop — which we already have the plan for — is Vernamfield,” Holness told supporters.

He emphasised that the Vernamfield development will build out a new industry in Clarendon, providing new jobs.

“Vernamfield will create new employment opportunities for young people in this constituency and all the constituencies in Clarendon. One area that we are targeting, and it is a very lucrative industry — obviously, it takes time to build out, but it is the progress — it is called the aircraft maintenance, repair operations and that is where all the airlines carry their planes to get maintained and repaired.

“Right now, you have such operations in Honduras, you have them in other Latin American countries, but because Jamaica is so centrally located we can have that kind of operation here,” Holness explained.

“You don’t need to have a big one; because the aircraft industry is so large, you just need to get one or two airlines sending five or six planes to get them repaired or maintained and you have a big industry, and I know that we have the technical expertise to do it, and I know we have the people we can train to do it. That is going to be a new industry that we are going to develop for your parish and specifically to help the people here,” he added.

Holness pointed to the new Morant Bay Urban Centre in St Thomas as a blueprint for the Government’s plans to further develop Clarendon.

“We are now going to do the same thing for this parish. This parish has a larger economy already than the parish of St Thomas. This parish has a large agriculture base, you have a large mining base, you have a large fishing base and recently you have the LNG (liquefied natural gas) terminal, which is off the coast, and you have the bauxite terminals, so you have the makings of a strong economy already,” said Holness.