St Thomas residents want more improvements to Rudolph Elder Park

Describing it as risky, some residents of St Thomas say the Rudolph Elder Park in Morant Bay is not a safe recreational space for children.

The Rudolph Elder Park was the national Labour Day project in 2015. The scope of the project included the installation of a playground in the park with swings, a jungle gym, and a slide and fencing around the area. Other work at the park included the installation of concrete benches and tables and repairs to the existing fence and gate at the entrance to the park.

But residents say the work done was insufficient. They contend that the lack of a barrier to separate the park from the seaside just yards away poses a risk to users, especially children.

“If you know what a park really looks like, then you’ll know that you’ll need more than just the two little swings that they placed there some time ago. It is like they just gave us something to say yes, it has been upgraded, but not everybody is static in St Thomas. We go places, and we know what a park should look like, and that is nothing near it,” said educator Lavern Ross-Graham.

“It is not safe at all. If children are there and you turn your back, they are out in the sea area. It is not enclosed from the back, so if a large gathering is there and somebody wants to snatch a child, then they can do it because the beach is right there and the place is wide open,” she added.

Albert Laidley echoed Ross-Graham’s sentiments.

“It is not a safe park in the sense that a number of children will come here from time to time. Children are coming from school, and they will find themselves in secluded spots, especially the high-school students. They will pair up sometimes with persons who aren’t their peers and find themselves places that they’re not supposed to be doing things they shouldn’t be doing. They easily come through the gate, and they will stroll down to the beach because it’s wide open, and I think that is very unsafe. I think the parish has failed the park,” he said.

Christopher Castello, who frequents the park in the evenings to play dominoes with his friends, feels that more should be done to truly transform the area.

“I’m saying, if dem a set up a Labour Day project for the park, why not build a wall to protect it that if kids in here they cannot go to the sea? That should have been the Labour Day project. Dem put a little thing up there suh, and pickney can easily lef out a that and go down by the sea,” he said in reference to a small fenced play area bearing only a few swings.

And pointing at two old concrete structures, Castello said: “That was a pool, enuh, and you see that? that was a pretty fountain. Dem supm deh should have still been here. We are all that’s left of the park right now.”

The Rudolph Elder Park is managed by the St Thomas Municipal Corporation, which along with Member of Parliament Dr Fenton Ferguson, had promised to transform the park into the Emancipation in the East.