BLACK RIVER, St Elizabeth — Three years after Prime Minister Dr Andrew Holness first announced that the Government was eyeing south-western Jamaica for the development of a new city, he has now indicated that this is likely to be established in St Elizabeth.

“Several years ago I had mentioned that Jamaica needs to purpose built a city. We haven’t really purpose built a city. We have never done it. Certainly not since colonial times. Maybe Spanish Town was the only purpose built city,” Holness said on Saturday at the opening of the latest Restaurants of Jamaica (ROJ) KFC outlet in Black River.

Holness said he had tasked the Urban Development Corporation to identify “the area best suited for the development of the third city”.

“Two areas were in close competition and I am not going to say specifically where, because… you don’t want people to go and start to buy land and stake claim and then you can’t do what you need to do, so we don’t give the details as to where, but suffice to say that the area that we have been advised is the best area to do an entirely new city and it is because all the requisite elements to create a new city exists here,” said Holness.

“You don’t want to create a city that replicates Montego Bay and Kingston, you want to create something unique and therefore this parish, St Elizabeth, would be where we would be looking to develop our new city. That is a big deal, big announcement,” added Holness.

He pointed to the connection between the Government’s investment push in St Elizabeth and the third city plan.

“You can now start to make sense of why we are now making certain massive investments in the parish which will include the bypass for Spur Tree to go down and then the bypass to get to here which will effectively bypass Santa Cruz. It will involve a development of south coast tourism, because we have a product here that is really great and we need to maximise that tourism product,” said Holness in reference to recent investments in agriculture and tourism.

“We have a massive investment in irrigating the plains here. We have launched the Pedro Plains Irrigation Project which is now underway, so we are focusing on the agricultural potential of the parish and that will essentially take water from the Black River,” added Holness as he encouraged property owners in Black River to preserve the buildings in the heritage rich town.

“For this town of Black River you have so much history, so many heritage buildings that it pains my heart when I hear that the buildings some of them have suffered from fire. Some of them have been destroyed by fire and I would make an appeal to the residents of Black River, to those who own some of these historic buildings, if you know what I know, you would preserve those buildings. Preserve them, because very soon they are going to be exceptional in value,” he said.

According to Holness, the Government is also eyeing a new tourism product to attract more people to the parish.

“Something that we have not taken advantage of but we should is education tourism and we are going to target this part of Jamaica for that new industry… So in the next chapter our of development, in our new term that is fast approaching, you can lookout for individual parish development plans that will be done in such a way that the residents participate in it, the stakeholders participate.

“You are going to see strategic and direct infusion of investments in such a way as to improve the quality of life of the people to provide the infrastructure that they need to create the business environment and ultimately to give the people the ability… work and earn where they live,” said Holness.