With the latest infrastructure development of a four-way highway from Harbour View, St Andrew to Yallahs Bridge in St Thomas, Prime Minister Andrew Holness says more is in store for residents of the parish.

This includes the construction of more than 1682 housing solutions in St Thomas.

“We have already directed the National Housing Trust (NHT) to be a part of the development, you know we have the goal of building 70,000 new housing solutions. Its a really very ambitious task, but you know me, I am always putting my hat where I have to stretch to reach it and we are doing some stretching to reach those 70,000 units,” Holness said.

He noted that despite setbacks from the pandemic, he is looking to have those houses delivered by 2025/2026.

“The NHT has begun the planning stage, the Hectors River development, we have Leith Hall community renewal which is ongoing, we have the Roselle, which is a guaranteed purchase programme and when you put all of that together we will be producing a total of 1682 housing solutions right here in the parish,” Holness said.

Holness was speaking at the grand opening of Sun Coast Beach Club in St Thomas on Tuesday (February 6).

The prime minister says the opening of the resort aligns closely with the road development project in the parish, making St. Thomas a tourist destination.

“This what we are doing here in terms of directing public resources to build roads is also going to create a new economy for St. Thomas. Already we have 4,000 hotel rooms projected for this area. St. Thomas is going to become the next tourist destination so between St Thomas and Portland with what we are doing here, I want to signal however that it is not the intention of the government to make this parish a colony of all-inclusive resorts, that’s not the intention, because we want to have a diverse tourism product.

So the way in which we direct the developments here is to have a more integrated tourism where the people are a part of the tourism, the people are a part of the attractions, the attractions, and the hotels don’t have to be high density and high intensity, we are looking a more low intensity, low-density kind of tourism, one that emphasizes and focuses on people, nature and culture,” Holness stressed.