Members of the Negril community are lamenting the lack of recreational parks and playgrounds for both children and adults living within the resort town.
“No green spaces; we are desperate in Negril for green spaces…,” retired intensive care nurse Elaine Bradley told Negril Times.
“In Negril, people seem to only concentrate on tourism and forget that we are a community with people, living and breathing here. Therefore, we need facilities to help to relieve some of the stress off the parents and the children,” she added.
Bradley said that stakeholder groups within Negril had been lobbying the authorities over the years, for a central park for members of the community, to no avail. She said even though the seven mile beach is regarded a place for recreation, it is not recommended, since it can be risky for children and offers less freedom for them to explore and play.
“The Negril chamber, with the Rotary club of Negril – we have been for years, wanting a park somewhere as a recreational (facility), not just the beach. Because, you know a lot of Jamaican children cannot swim. So the beach is not safe all the time for them, so they need extra green space so the parents can sit and watch them play,” Bradley explained.
“I think our Municipal Corporation is very lacking in this area, because if the Municipal Corporation was interested in people, and the community, I think Negril, as a tourist town would be more developed and look more like a first world country than a dump as it is now,” he added.
When asked about the controversial proposed Norman Manley Beach Park adjacent to the Negril Craft Market and the Norman Manley Boulevard, Bradley, had this to say:
“Park? That’s a non-park. I would not call it a park. Yes, it’s a park for cars but I wouldn’t know about human beings,” she said.
“We need a park so that people can relieve some of the stress that they have at home. In taking their kids there, sit and watch them play and enjoy themselves as kids. Children have to be children,” she re-emphasized.
The park had been shrouded in controversy beginning 2014 when the Negril Resort Board expressed displeasure that a wooden frame fence financed by the Tourism Enhancement Fund, was being erected without the architectural designs or drawings being presented to the board for ratification.
In April 2016 there were more complaints as the board called on Tourism Minister Edmund Bartlett, to resume the work on the facility.
The scope of work for the project, which was scheduled to be undertaken in two phases, entailed the fencing of the property, construction of sanitary facilities, landscaping an area for exercising, and the installing of a basketball court. However, up to then, apart from the erection of a security post and the now-dilapidated perimeter fence, nothing else had been done to improve the property.
Bradley was skeptical about recent revelations that the park was now “number one” on the agenda for the Tourism Ministry’ Destination Assurance Council and the local planning authority.
“I have been hearing this ‘number one’ for over 20 years and nothing’s moved, but now I hear this number one on NGIALPAs (Negril Green Island Area Local Planning Authority) list that they will be developing a park, because Montego Bay has got Harmony Park. Can’t we have a Harmony Park ‘cousin’?
“The space is already there. We could actually have a Harmony Park cousin in Negril, even if we don’t get a full Harmony Park we could have something resembling that sort of thing,” Bradley noted.
Bradley told Negril Times that there can be no question as to whether or not Negril deserved a state-of-the-art park, like Harmony Park in Montego Bay, as the resort town has been generating the third highest number of tourism dollar on the island after Montego Bay and Ocho Rios.
In terms of revenue to the Tourism Enhancement Fund, Negril, prior to COVID 19, was bringing close to U$10 million (J$15 billion) to the TEF’ tourism coffers as close to 500,000 visitors trekked to the town annually.
The disparity in the service rendered to the town, versus the revenue it generates, has been a longstanding bone of contention for Bradley and others.
“Negril actually put in a third of the finances in the tourism industry and we get nothing back. And so, what are we? The underdogs?” Bradley asked.
“We must be the underdogs that they just come and strip us of everything and we get nothing. It’s about time…
“Kingston is not Jamaica. There are people, as I said, living and breathing in the community; not just tourism. Because can you imagine, if you have a nice park and you are at home pent up and you feel stressed, you go in the park, you sit , you look at the trees; you listen to the birds and you go home and you feel refreshed. And so, we really and truly need recreational facilities for our people and the children of the community,” Bradley said.
Negril resident Ramon Bremmer, a schoolteacher who grew up in the resort town, expressed the same sentiments as Bradley.
“I do believe that if Montego Bay can have a Harmony Park, Negril can have one too. So I am appealing to the various authorities to kindly come and help us,” he said.
He said that a child, in earlier times, he and other children in Negril had access to play areas, but these have all gone defunct overtime.
“You have a lack of green space, so for example children are unable to come to the beach. In the past when I was growing up in Negril, you had a jungle gym; you had some form of games you could come and play… you could come and sit on the lawn and read books,” Bremmer explained.
“Children need safe spaces where their parents can take them, and they are able to have fun and enjoy themselves,” he added.
