ST MARY, Jamaica — Member of Parliament (MP) for St Mary Western, Robert Montague, has committed to opening additional HEART/NSTA Trust training centres if given another term in his constituency to equip young people with valuable skills.

Montague, who made the commitment at a Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) meeting in St Mary Western recently, said there are too many young talents within his constituency that are not being properly utilised.

“We have started two HEART programmes training young people because we want to begin that partnership to train them to get them started on the urban centre in Boscobel. I want to open up training. We opened up eight training centres [and] after COVID we ended up with one. We are now back to two, and we want to expand that offering,” he said.

Meanwhile, the MP said a digital base will be established at the Boscobel Urban Centre for young people to develop apps and software. He said the urban centre will employ over 2,500 people once completed.

“It is also my intention with the support of the prime minister to create more opportunities for housing for the people of St Mary Western. We have many children from St Mary Western who have gone off to college, and they want to come back to build a home in their community, but land is not available.

“The prime minister has already started an upgrade at Spicy Grove, sorting out the people at Lighthouse Road in Galina. We changed the name from Lighthouse Road; it is now Sea Estate Housing Development because we are now upgrading it and making the people feel that they are real Jamaicans, and prime minister promised last night to give them their title,” Montague said.

He added that the Government plans to establish a housing scheme in Decoy and Salisbury, with negotiations also underway to purchase land in Gayle.

Meanwhile, Montague has committed to improving the beaches in St Mary.

“One of the first things we want to ensure the prime minister is that the people of St Mary Western have full access to public beaches. That is why we have gotten an arrangement with the Ministry of Tourism to invest over $140 million to improve the Murdock Beach in Oracabessa and the Rio Nuevo Beach down in Rio Nuevo because it is important as a sea side constituency that the people have proper access to the sea and to the beach.

“I like to know when you go down to Rio Nuevo families can go out on a Sunday and enjoy their God-given right and we want to build world class beaches not just a place where you walk in, but a world-class beach with proper facilities, changing rooms, bathrooms, locker room, a performing stage that our talent can be exposed,” he said.