Highway Designers Adjusted the Route at a Bull Bay Catholic Church. The Town Hall Was Held Inside It

• The NWA announced changes to Segment 1A of the Southern Coastal Highway
• Minor alignment changes included the section at St Benedict The Moor church
• The town hall meeting was held at the church in Bull Bay
• Bigger changes were made at Mezgar Gardens and Grants Pen

When the National Works Agency explained revisions to the Southern Coastal Highway Improvement Project to residents of Bull Bay in September 2020, it did so inside a church that sits along the route. The Gleaner reported that minor alignment changes had been made at several places, including St Benedict The Moor Catholic Church at 7 Miles, Bull Bay, St Andrew, where the town hall meeting took place.

The changes affected Segment 1A of the project, which runs from Harbour View in St Andrew to the Yallahs Bridge in St Thomas. The wider project covers about 110 kilometres between Harbour View and Port Antonio in Portland, plus 26 kilometres from Morant Bay to Cedar Valley in St Thomas. The paper described it as multibillion-dollar and noted significant budget cuts since it was announced.

According to the report, minor alignment changes were made at sections such as St Benedict The Moor Catholic Church, the Cane River Bridge, the Bull Bay football field and the Pond Side area of Bull Bay, while major changes were made at the Mezgar Gardens section and at Grants Pen. The NWA’s communications manager, Stephen Shaw, said: “These changes are optimising the designs to ensure we get maximum benefits from the project as conceptualised.”

The article did not set out what the realignment meant for the church’s own land or buildings, and it did not report any figures for property acquisition or compensation. What it does show is how closely road design and church property sit together along Jamaica’s main roads, where many congregations built generations ago on land that is now needed for widening.

For churches along planned corridors, the lesson is to engage early. Congregations should find out exactly where the proposed alignment runs in relation to their boundaries, ask for drawings, attend consultations and put concerns in writing. Churches with clear, up-to-date titles and surveys are better placed to argue for changes, or to negotiate fair compensation if land must be taken. Diaspora members who fund church buildings back home should also ask whether any new construction sits in the path of a planned road.