Grave dispute
GRANGE HILL, Westmoreland – The Westmoreland Municipal Corporation has served People’s National Party councillor/candidate Warren Littleton (Grange Hill Division) with a stop order on a house that is being built adjacent to a cemetery.
However Littleton’s son, Ackeem, told the Jamaica Observer that he is the owner of the structure being erected on the property in Church Lincoln, Grange Hill, and is fuming that the stop notice, served on December 15, will result in losses for him.
“I don’t know what is the next procedure. For a little youth who a work and a build from so long and then they come give a stop order when you put on the housetop [and] borrow loan,” the 27-year-old bartender bemoaned.
He also rubbished talk that the house is being constructed inside the cemetery.
“I am not in the cemetery; a yah so mi born and grow. They need to get their surveyor, get their diagrams, and from there they can say if the house is on the land because I don’t know about that,” Ackeem Littleton argued.
On Monday a resident of a nearby community told the Observer that there were three wooden houses in the cemetery but that they were taken down after the residents received notice to remove.
“Mi nuh feel good ’bout it. Nobody nuh fi try occupy the cemetery; the cemetery is for the poorer class of people. Houses were here before and the Government give them notice and dem move,” the resident said.
The Observer sought a comment from Westmoreland’s Chief Public Health Inspector Steve Morris on the risks of living inside a cemetery.
“If somebody goes into a cemetery and builds a permanent structure, it is cause for concern,” he said.
“It’s a permanent structure being put in a public space, and that should be a no-no,” Morris said, adding that the parish is short on burial space.
“Grange Hill is one of those big communities with a large population and so space in [a] cemetery is really short. At the health department we will not support living among the dead,” he said.
Attempts to get a comment from Mayor Bertel Moore on the matter were unsuccessful as it was said that he had to get a comment from the officer who served the notice.
