The Ramble Community Development Committee (CDC) in Hanover has expressed its disappointment with statements made by Prime Minister Bruce Golding with regards to approval of a burial site in the area.

Golding, on Wednesday night during 'Jamaica House Live' - a monthly radio talk show - said the relevant environmental authorities had conducted investigations and found that the burial site was not a threat to the Great River Water Supply system that serves the western parish.

The residents have publicly stated their disapproval with Delapenha Funeral Home operating a commercial cemetery in the area.

'Unfortunate utterances'

In a statement issued yesterday, the Ramble CDC said Golding's "utterances are very unfortunate when one considers that it is coming from a man who was elected to run the entire country and who once explicitly stated that he was going to be 'new and different'".

Earlier this month, militant residents of the 23 communities surrounding the controversial Delapenha's Funeral Home-owned Royale Rest Cemetery in Burnt Ground, Hanover, said they were willing and ready to put life and limb on the line to prevent burials from taking place at the site.

Ever since Delapenha's Funeral Home got permission from Government to start using the cemetery just under a month ago, residents of communities such as Copse, Haughton Grove, Ramble, Burnt Ground and Shettlewood have used mass demonstrations to thwart attempts to have funerals there. However, a burial took place there last week.

Arsonists, believed to be sympathetic to the disgruntled residents, firebombed a section of the cemetery, causing more than $2 million in damage.

Yesterday's statement said the Ramble CDC is a recognised community development committee comprising various community-based organisations throughout the Chester Castle, Burnt Ground and Ramble communities of eastern Hanover.

"We, the citizen members of the Ramble Community Development Committee, are insisting that the location of a cemetery in our area will have disastrous effects on the women, men and children as formaldehyde used in the burial process will poison our water supply. This is not a political issue; it is a human, community issue," the release said.