MANDEVILLE, Manchester — Vendors at the Melrose Yam Park say since the facility was reopened last December, following a four-month closure, business has been coming in slowly.

The yam park had been ordered closed last August after the Manchester Health Department said there were operational breaches at the facility.

It was recently reopened following renovation work by the Manchester Municipal Corporation. Vendors, however, remain hopeful that the park, which received a well-needed facelift, will return to its glory days.

Carol “Shelly” McLean, a vendor at the facility, told the Jamaica Observer on Tuesday that business has been “up and down”.

“We are taking our time to see if we can survive… It might be rough, but we are working,” she said.

Further, McLean said customers “like how the place is painted”.

She added that the health department and local municipality are working to address the vendors’ concerns over the limitation of selling roast yam and saltfish at the yam park.

Customers can purchase roast yam and saltfish from a starting price of $300 up to $1,000.

McLean pointed to the economic hardship being faced by Jamaicans with the increase in basic commodities as a factor for the lower than usual business turnover at the yam park, but is optimistic that the facility will grow when construction of the US$188-million May Pen to Williamsfield leg of the east-west corridor of Highway 2000 is completed.

The project — which will reduce travel time between Kingston, Mandeville and points west — was originally scheduled for completion in October 2022, but has been extended to March 2023.

With the alignment of the highway set to incorporate the Melrose Hill Bypass, the National Road Operating & Constructing Company (NROCC), which is responsible for overseeing the design, construction and maintenance of Jamaica’s highways, said following consultations with the local municipality and vendors at the Melrose Yam Park, it has set aside land to build eight additional stalls. These will be on the westbound side of the upgraded road to allow motorists heading westbound to support vending along the corridor.

But another vendor, Michelle Banton, said she is awaiting the highway completion to see what will happen.

“Well, we don’t know yet until it happens, so we can’t say yet, because we don’t know how it is going to affect us yet,” she said.

Jeffery Smith, who has been working with his mother Theresa Dawkins, for the past five years at the yam park, was grateful to be back at work.

“It nuh too bad enuh, because we a live again. We a work fi live,” he said.

Dawkins, who has been a vendor at the facility for close to two decades, said the facility is in a far better condition than when it was closed last August.

She said the vendors have been in dialogue with the local municipality regarding plans to further develop the facility.

“Them seh dem ago improve on it enuh. Put on shutter awning and it aguh paint inna Wray & Nephew colour, so it a guh improve. Them a guh have jerk centre and all of that soon, so it a guh improve and nicer,” she said.

Paulette Howell, who operates in one of the 12 stalls at the facility, said the space has improved.

“From it reopened and I came out here, I would say I have never had a bad day. Nuh care how late I come, I still make something and I still give thanks,” she said.

“The place is clean and all I have to try to do is to keep it that way. Whenever the weekend comes I try to wash down my shop just to keep it clean, because the facility is really nice now and it will be much nicer with more improvement weh a guh deh over here,” she added.

Meanwhile, Howell said an increase in stall fees since the facility was reopened from $150 to $1,000 per day is justifiable.

“People a quarrel over the fee. They must be fair and talk the thing straight. If one person in a shop they are going to pay $1,000 per day, if two of you in the shop, you pay $500 each. The more people in the shop the less the fee will be,” she said.