SPALDINGS, Clarendon — It’s been a long time coming, but member of parliament for north-west Clarendon Richard Azan says vendors will be moving into the new market at the centre of the town within weeks.

“The ground floor will be ready in a couple of weeks’ time,” Azan told the Observer Central during a visit on Friday.

All told, the ground floor will cost in the region of $10 million, Azan said. Funding came mostly from the Ministry of Local Government and the Clarendon Parish Council.

Funds for a second floor, slated to cost $25 million to $30 million are yet to be identified, but Azan says he will be working vigorously to build public and private sector partnerships to raise the money.

The market project has been characterised by stops and starts since 2007 when the Ministry of Health closed down the old, dilapidated and termite-infested structure. Since then, vendors have taken to the streets, sidewalks, the transportation centre and even the entrance to the town’s public sanitary conveniences to sell their wares.

On Friday, they told the Observer Central they were anxious to have the facility open.

“Wi well want it, wi haffi come off the street. If everybody deh one place, things haffi sell,” said Andrew Gooden, who claimed he has been vending since “cloth a sell fi 10 cent a yard”.

And fruit vendor Everton Biggs insisted that “we can’t tek the harassment from the police dem nuh more… we want it (market) now”.

Even as they welcomed the new and improved facilities however, there were complaints by some clothes vendors regarding plans to locate them in an area they considered unsuitable.

“Dem want to push we down inna one corner (behind the library which is adjacent to the market),” one of them complained.

But Azan was adamant that “we cannot allow vendors to be on the sidewalk … they will have to move”. He explained that the market complex was part of a drive to bring orderly development to Spaldings, the main town in northwest Clarendon.

The plan for the market complex includes the housing of the town’s poor relief office, which now operates out of rented premises, as well as a revenue collection centre.

“As the situation now stands, most of the tax revenue from motor vehicles goes across the border to Manchester… we need to catch that to get some of the revenue back into Clarendon,” said Azan.

“The vital element is the development of Spaldings,” he added. “Spaldings has outgrown what we have… We have to think about building for the next 30-40 years,” the MP said.