New road linking Hanover to Westmoreland will open up new lands for housing, says PM Holness

WESTERN BUREAU:

Prime Minister Dr Andrew Holness says plans are afoot for the construction of a new road for sections of Hanover leading into Westmorland, which will also open up new lands for development, to include housing, as swell as complement the ongoing Montego Bay Perimeter Road.

Holness, who was speaking at Sunday night’s Jamaica Labour Party’s [JLP] mass rally at Sam Sharpe Square in Montego Bay, St. James, said the planned road construction project for Hanover and Westmoreland will ease concerns about potential damage to the present roadway due to its close proximity to the shoreline.

“What we have done here with the perimeter road – that is going to open up more opportunities in lands for housing, and we are not stopping there–as soon as the perimeter road is finished, we are going to start a new road and a new alignment that will go around Hopewell, Lucea, and Sandy Bay, and carry you right around to Negril,” said Holness.

“It will be a brand-new roadway, because the present roadway, no matter how you fix it, it is always going to give you trouble because it is too close to the sea. We are going to move the road inland, but as we move the road inland, we are also opening up and making accessible new lands along those roads,” said Holness. “You are going to have a new set of housing emerging in Hanover and Westmoreland, where the housing demands are very high.”

The Montego Bay Perimeter Road Project, which began in 2021 and is scheduled for completion by 2026, is aimed at improving traffic flow in and around Montego Bay. It includes the creation of a 15-kilometre dual highway from Ironshore to Bogue, a 10.5-kilometre bypass along the Long Hill roadway, and upgrades to West Green Avenue and Barnett Street.

On the matter of housing, Holness said his administration intends to build 60,000 new houses in addition to the 53,000 housing projects to be done by the National Housing Trust over the next five years.

“The more houses go on the market, the more the price of the houses goes down, and when the price goes down, the cost of the mortgage also goes down. We have committed to build another 60,000 houses ... the highway we are building from Kingston going all the way round to Port Antonio [in Portland], that highway has opened up new lands for development,” said Holness.

“Right now, we have over 8,000 applications for housing in the St Thomas corridor running along the new highway. The Williamsfield highway, in Manchester, we have put up new lands there for housing as well,” Holness continued.