Dovecot issued with cease-and-desist order
Published:Thursday | August 11, 2022 | 12:07 AMRuddy Mathison/Gleaner Writer
THE ST CATHERINE Municipal Corporation (StCMC) has issued a cease-and-desist order on Dovecot Memorial Park, amid claims that burials are being conducted on a 50-acre plot that has been the source of an ongoing dispute.
The StCMC, chaired by Norman Scott, has insisted that burials at the yet-to-be-approved zone are off limits.
“If they continue, we will ask our attorneys to issue an injunction,” Scott, who is also mayor of Spanish Town, told The Gleaner.
He continued: “The residents are correct. At no time did the municipal corporation I chair give Dovecot any permission to start placing dead bodies on top of the underwater aquifer, which is a potential health hazard.”
Efforts by The Gleaner to get comments from the management of Dovecot were unsuccessful.
The 50-acre expansion of the Spanish Town burial site has once again irked residents living within its proximity.
Residents demonstrated outside the gate of the expanded facility on Monday, after learning that the operators of the burial park had started to inter bodies at the new site.
Householders claim that underground water sources that feed communities are in the vicinity of the newly prepared area.
The operators padlocked the gate upon seeing the protesters.
At least 20 vaults with headstones and wreaths lying atop them were sighted on Monday. Another area with numerous vaults being prepared for burials was also visible.
The residents fear that the aquifer is at risk of contamination.
“To our knowledge now, initially we had thought it was just one or two burials, but upon further investigations, over 20 persons are already buried on the new site,” declared a resident of neighbouring Mercury Gardens.
The resident said that although environmental regulator, the National Environment and Planning Agency, had approved an environmental permit for the expansion of Dovecot, various citizens’ associations have rejected the move and have been calling for the revocation of the permit.
“As far as we know, no permission has been given by the parish council for burials to begin and only the parish council can give such permission,” the resident, who requested anonymity, added.