Letter of the Day | Proposed Parliament should not be at National Heroes Circle

THE EDITOR, Madam:

It seems that the Government is not yet satisfied with the extent to which they have demonstrated their lack of concern for the citizenry of this country, but continues to make every effort to ensure that those who have not yet realised this to be the case, are so enlightened.

Hence their insistence that an open, spacious area is wasted and thrown away. The Government says that National Hero Norman Manley mentioned that the current Heroes Circle could house the Parliament building. That would have been over 50 years ago, and given a review of the current situation in the area and in Jamaica, such an assertion could hardly now stand up to scrutiny.

If, by stretching one’s imagination, we call that a rationale (and it certainly is not), there is absolutely no other rationale for the proposal, none whatsoever. The Urban Development Corporation, it appears, has been browbeaten into saying “yes”. That is it. On the other hand all the informed pros in their related fields have, time and time again, given all the reasons why the park status should be kept.

It is clear that the interests of the Jamaican people is way down in the list of Government priorities, if it exists there at all. It is not the well-being of the citizenry that is being promoted here. Who is going to be helped or boosted by a Parliament building being located there, and where is the rationale for so doing?

There is none, and I challenge Prime Minister Andrew Holness, or anyone else, to a discussion where a rationale, for even considering the park as a location for the Parliament building, can be produced.

The fact that a design has been done, regardless of whether or not the design can be adjusted for another location, is absolutely no justification whatsoever. The building is not a fait accompli.

The fact of the perception of there being greater violence in lower Kingston is no rationale, and in fact it is a powerful reason for fully developing the park.

Instead of robbing the city of needed green space, what is needed is more calm, more peace and spaciousness, more “social oxygen”.

And if one is concerned with leaving a legacy, one can be very sure that the legacy that will be left by building the Parliament there will be “heartless and uncaring”.

What a travesty it will be to take this area, waiting for complete park development, to be misused for the purposes being considered. Locating the Parliament building there will completely obliterate its park potential.

There are so many other possible locations for the Parliament, and political leaders need to think less of their own comfort and wants and more of the real needs of the long-suffering people they are supposed to serve. Leave Heroes Circle alone, to be developed into a full-fledged green area, “A jewel in the heart of lower Kingston”.

DAVID ABRIKIAN