KSAC concerned about vending in Manor Park
THE Commercial Services Committee of the Kingston and St Andrew Corporation (KSAC) says its will be making recommendations to the corporation on ways to deal with illegal vending in Manor Park, according to Councillor Angella Brown-Burke, the committee’s chairman.
Burke was responding to concerns raised by Councillor Gareth Walker, at Tuesday’s monthly meeting of the KSAC, that illegal vending outside the Wortley Home, at 93 Constant Spring Road, was being treated more leniently, than was the case downtown.
Walker, at the February meeting of the council, had asked the council to write and request for the National Solid Waste Management Authority to take action to have the vendors removed from outside the Wortley Home.
Mayor Marie Atkins said that she had heard that the illegal vending outside the Wortley Home was in court.
Meanwhile, Brown-Burke said that even though the Waste Management Authority was responsible for implementation, the KSAC still had the responsibility to set the policy framework.
“We didn’t want a pitchy patchy approach so commercial services decided that the entire area would be looked at and a recommendation made on illegal vending. There are illegal vendors right by the traffic light and by the entire strip there is a problem,” Brown-Burke said.
Mayor Atkins, at Tuesday’s meeting, also welcomed the Lord Mayor of Leeds, Councillor Bryan North-Lord and his wife Celine, to Kingston.
Atkins said that there was a deep rooted Jamaican connection between Kingston and Leeds, pointing out that North-Lord’s wife, the Lady Mayoress of Leeds, is a Jamaican. She said that the thousands of Jamaicans residing in Leeds had positively impacted on the economies of both cities.
“In Leeds they contribute positively to the gross domestic product of the United Kingdom and their remittances to Kingston positively impact on Jamaica’s gross national product (GNP),” Atkins said.
A letter from the Jamaica Society (Leeds), read at the meeting, noted that the association had contributed thousands of pounds in cash and kind, including support to children’s homes, adopted a basic school, assisted with emergency funds for Jamaicans in distress and to children needing urgent surgeries, and have donated equipment and cash to hospitals.
In 2001 Susan Pitter, the first black mayoress and the first of Jamaican descent, was appointed in Leeds.