MONTEGO BAY, St James — When the new Granville Police Station is finally built, parish manager for St James Health Department Lennox Wallace will be among those cheering.

According to him, he has played a small role in moving the project along by giving the nod when the national security ministry asked to use two plots of land which businessman and philanthropist Mark Kerr Jarrett had donated to house a health centre. The security ministry needed the land on which to build the much-needed police station. It will replace the one gutted by fire in 2021.

“I immediately said, ‘Tell me what I should do’ and they said they need a letter from me giving up those two plots of land. I did not wait to do so,” Wallace explained.

He was speaking, Tuesday, during a press conference to announce the department’s newly formed $50-million integrated vector and rodent control programmes.

Wallace said Kerr-Jarrett donated the land to the health department 40 years ago. The goal was to provide a facility where residents of Granville could access health services. However Wallace maintained that there is now no urgent need to build a health centre for Granville as the one that is there is in good shape.

“I spent about $81 million to expand that facility. However, the Granville community, I must say, has taken care of that facility and I’m happy for that,” he said.

He sees the decision to hand the land over to the security ministry as an extension of the work he and his team members do within the community. Helping the police, he said, will eventually make residents’ lives easier.

“This is what we continue to do for the Jamaica Constabulary Force and to help them this year to reduce crime, to help our parents, to help our loved ones. So when they leave here at 10 o’clock at night to go home, they will have no fear but to know that they are protected in and out of our facilities,” Wallace said.

“We want to play our part here in St James as far as support of the police is concerned,” he added.

Meanwhile, the health department continues its work to eradicate mosquitoes and rodents which have seen a resurgence since Hurricane Melissa slammed sections of Jamaica’s southern and western parishes on October 28. On Tuesday Wallace announced a parish-wide six-week-long Breteau Index Reduction programme and rodent control programme that will run for six months. He also highlighted progress made in renting 15 dump trucks that will be used in the ongoing effort to remove bulky waste which, if left untended could attract pests and provide a breeding ground for mosquitoes.