Cedar Vally residents tired of bad roads

It would be wise not to talk or chew when travelling along sections of Cedar Valley as the badly broken roads could leave you biting your tongue.

What should have been a 10-minute ride took almost 30 minutes to get into the St Thomas district. Residents and those traversing the community told THE STAR that they have not seen smooth roads in more than 20 years.

"Is decades the road is like this ... and because of this there will be no votes. The best coffee comes from this side, as this is the main road that you use to go up in the Blue Mountain -- and look at the road. The road just need to fix and the water channelled to the side in a drainage system. But nothing like that not happening. Taxi don't run up this side either, because it terrible for them," a fed-up Marva Crossdale said.

Vernetth Campbell lamented that he and other coffee farmers are losing their profits because it is being eaten up in transportation costs.

"Is about one thousand years this place look so eno," Campbell exaggerated. "Mi old man dead when him a 85 years old, and him dead and nuh see it fix. A problem fi farmers like mi, because mi have to pay the four-wheel drive ... and seh we have all 50 box a coffee, we have to pay $30,000 for the drive and we have to pay staff. Is $10,000 a box, and we have to pay the workers $2,500 a box to pick," Campbell explained.

The news team observed a motorcyclist as he carefully tried to manoeuvre his way through the stones and craters, but this proved difficult for the rider, who had to come to a complete stop and manually placed the motorbike in the required direction.

"When rain fall, this is a river, because even when rain don't fall it is a riverbed. The way things get bad, nuff a the coffee farmers dem pack up and gone 'bout dem business, because dem nah make any profit. Nuff time we get loan to buy vehicle but it nuh make any sense, because within a year, the brand new vehicle mash up. Because of this road, everything is just money," Campbell added.

A mechanic from the district, who goes by the name Patrick, told THE STAR that vehicle repairs could easily amount to quarter of a million dollars annually.

"There is no road in this district, only a gully course. It is very tedious to have a motor vehicle. Once you live up here, it will cause yuh all of you life savings. Is me fix mi vehicle and it cost mi over $250,000 every year, so imagine a man who can't fix car," he said.

THE STAR tried unsuccessfully to get a comment from mayor of Morant Bay Louis Chin.