Construction of Barnett Street fire station to start by fiscal year end
CONSTRUCTION OF a fire station at Barnett Street in Montego Bay, St James, is slated to get under way by the end of the financial year.
The facility is to be built at a cost of $475 million. Minister of Local Government and Community Development Desmond McKenzie said that the project was put to tender and work is expected to start shortly.
He was speaking at the launch of Local Government and Community Development Month at the Claude Stuart Park in Port Maria, St Mary, last Thursday.
McKenzie said that tender documents for the Port Maria fire station will become available to the public as at Saturday, November 3.
The Port Maria fire station is to be built at a cost of $221 million.
“We are expecting that, following the posting of the tender document, work will commence by April next year,” he said.
“We have ensured that we have lived up to the commitments that we have made as an administration, and I want to say to the people of Port Maria and St Mary, what we are doing is not a favour we are granting; it is our obligation, it is our responsibility,” he said.
Referring to work under way on a new market in Port Maria, McKenzie said that the facility, upon completion, will be the first of its kind in the country.
“It is not just a one-floor market, and it is going to be a multipurpose market that will not only sell ground provisions,” he said. The market is being built at a cost of $56 million.
“We have been working, and we continue to work. There are a number of things the parish of St Mary has benefited from and will continue to benefit from,” he said.
Local Government and Community Development Month is being celebrated under the theme ‘Protecting the Vulnerable ... Establishing Hope through Local Governance’.