GRANGE HILL, Westmoreland
Chairman of the Westmoreland Parish Council Bertel Moore, has warned squatters occupying the Church Lincoln cemetery in this rural community to vacate the burial ground or face eviction.


" They will be evicted if they don't leave .....you just can't go and live in the cemetery. That's a no, no. The cemetery is for the dead not for the living, so they will have to leave very soon," said an adamant Moore.

Moore's stern warning comes almost three months after 'notices to quit' served on the more than dozen persons living under unhygienic conditions on the council owned- lands, went unheeded.

According to Moore, the council's attorneys are in the process of preparing summonses to serve on the squatters within another two weeks.
If the occupants fail to comply, he explained, the council will have no choice but to have them removed.

But the squatters told the OBSERVER WEST on Tuesday that while they are willing to leave the burial ground they have no where to go.
"Wi will leave if we get somewhere to go to," Elfrieda Samuels, 68, who along with her husband Roy, have been living on the property for about a decade.

She explained that her daughter and three grandchildren are not in a position to assist then financially, and is calling on the authorities for help.
"Mi really need some help, if wi get a little house wi will gladly move," Elfrieda said, as she sat at the doorway of her dilapidated one-room board structure.

Not too far away, Jacinthia Simmonds who occupies another tattered one room- board structure told the OBSERVER WEST that she was badly in need of help.

"Even though mi live here, mi really need fi move because the house nuh good. But mi have nowhere fi go," she said. "Mi haffi get help fi leave," said Simmonds who share the dwelling with her 5-year-old daughter.
Leebert Chambers, another resident at the burial ground said while he has "family" lands where he can relocate, he is badly in need of funds to construct a habitable structure on those lands.

He said he is however anxiously awaiting financial help from some of his children who are now living elsewhere.

Chambers, 63, has been living on the property for just over 30 years.
His deceased wife, he said, is buried at a spot near the house, which he added, was constructed on graves.

Several ground provisions are cultivated in the vicinity of his dwelling.
Meanwhile, Moore told the OBSERVER WEST that the council plans to erect a perimeter fencing at the property within the next three months.

He also said plans are also being finalized to beautify the facility.

According to the residents in Grange Hill, the burial ground, has been reportedly neglected for many years, as evidenced by the thick shrubbery in most areas of the more than 50-year-old facility.


Source: Observer Western News