By Daraine Luton—–

THE URBAN Development Corporation (UDC) is to spend $200 million on social-intervention programmes in downtown Kingston this year.

K.D. Knight, chairman of the UDC, said the programme was aimed at giving a facelift to the capital city.

“The UDC has embarked on a programme to see how it can help to improve the conditions under which people in the Corporate Area live,” Knight said.

His comments came yesterday during his contribution to the debate on a motion brought by opposition Senator Robert Montague.

The motion calls for adequate funding to be made available for the care and protection of the registered poor and destitute as well as for the provision of employment and other opportunities for this grouping.

In supporting the motion, Knight said the board of the UDC has been spending “some anxious moments considering just how the UDC can assist in improving the housing stock, particularly so in the Corporate Area.”

The senator said the Board of the UDC recognises that Kingston is the capital city, “and if the capital cut is in decay, then it is symptomatic of the rest of the country”.