Westmoreland vendors still flood-hit as Savanna-la-Mar Market relocation stalls

Vendors forced out of the Savanna-la-Mar Market in Westmoreland are still dealing with repeated flooding and mounting tidal surge, as there remains no official programme to move the facility or restore it on a lasting basis.

Heavy rain last week again left parts of their interim trading space underwater, interrupting sales for traders who have worked from the market car park and nearby roads since the complex shut after Hurricane Melissa last year.

Savanna-la-Mar Councillor Julian Chang told The Gleaner that conditions have deteriorated over recent months, with higher tides regularly driving seawater into the town.

"The market has been closed since the hurricane, so the vendors are in the car park and on the road. But now the tide has become very high since recently, especially in the evenings. The tide comes up as far as Brooks Plaza and debris is everywhere," she said.

Chang said the traders have little room to manoeuvre as water keeps invading the temporary stalls.

"They have no choice. They are already in the streets selling and now the drains are overflowing, worse with the high tide. It’s just a sad situation there right now. We need help in Savanna-la-Mar," she said.

She also indicated she knew of no lasting plan to fix the recurring flooding.

Savanna-la-Mar Mayor Danree Delancy said the market’s position on the coast leaves it ever more exposed and maintained that moving it remains the soundest lasting answer.

"The minister (Desmond McKenzie) came to a conclusion that the market needs to be relocated," Delancy told The Gleaner. He pointed out that sizable spending went into repairing the market after Hurricane Beryl, only for Hurricane Melissa to wreck it again.

He warned that climate pressures are likely to intensify the problem.

"What you are seeing currently, with the seawater coming and backing up, that will eventually get worse. Bear in mind that the town of Savanna-la-Mar sits at some points below sea level. And now, with global warming getting more and more prevalent, so to speak, we are going to be seeing more effects from high tide along the coastline down there. And that will continue to affect the market," he said.

Possible sites such as Llandilo, Paradise and Chantilly have been floated for a replacement market, yet Delancy acknowledged that no formal study has been done to pick a new location, even though moving the facility has long been discussed inside the Ministry of Local Government and Community Development and the Westmoreland Municipal Corporation (WMC).

"It’s dependent on whether [the Ministry of Local Government] is willing to relocate the market. Because if we’re not willing to relocate the market then we will come up with all sorts of excuses… . Once there’s the real will to find a location, it can be done and will be done," he said.

Delancy pushed back against claims that drainage works in the town have stalled.

"Actually, as I speak, work is going on. We have [done work] in the town of Savanna-la-Mar itself; about a $3.5-million drain cleaning project [is] currently under way," he said, noting that drains next to the market would also be cleared under the same effort.

He confirmed the market carries insurance but would not discuss any possible payout until he had spoken with the corporation’s finance staff.

Separately, a Westmoreland Health Department official said a public health inspector was sent yesterday morning to examine conditions at the market after the flooding. Any public health response, the official added, would wait on the inspection findings.

In the meantime, traders remain stuck between a closed market, improvised roadside pitches and a shoreline that keeps pressing in on one of western Jamaica’s busiest trading centres, with no set timetable for relocating the market or permanently solving its flood risk.