Mel Cooke, Gleaner Writer

Negril's West End has long been known as the more rustic, charming side of the roundabout in Jamaica's western haven for tourists, touts and troubadours - or its more rough-and-tumble side, depending on the viewer's perspective.

No matter prior opinion, the intention of a thrust to rename West End One Love Drive is to make the view from the roundabout along the coast to the lighthouse uniform - that of the cultural hub of the Caribbean. This is being done in conjunction with Jamaica Trade and Invest and the Private Sector Development Programme.

In fact, it is not so much a renaming as the bestowing of a name. Chairman of MXIII and a director of the Negril Small Medium and Microenterprises Cluster, Clive 'Kubba' Pringle, told The Sunday Gleaner that in the early stages of the transformative process it was discovered that West End was never officially named.

Paperwork

At this point the official renaming is still going through the paperwork, although Pringle said that a pair of huge billboards at either approach to the road already announce the new name.

"Our main drive is to turn West End into One Love Drive and the cultural hub of the Caribbean," he said. "We don't have to wait on Spring Break. We can make our own Spring Break," Pringle said confidently.

To this end, the Negril Cluster is planning to create a space where "everything is authentic. Studies show that the main thing people come for is the culture. What we want to do is find out who are the people who have the authentic Jamaican products and have them here".

In addition to the large, fixed billboards, the cluster has also gone small and mobile in its One Love Drive campaign, bumper stickers announcing the renaming. Pringle said the project is now at the numbering stage, which would naturally give each property on the drive an easily identifiable address.

The plan is to also make it easily accessible for pedestrians, with proper sidewalks in place. "We don't only want people to be driving through. We want them walking," Pringle said, adding that there are also plans to have horse-drawn carriages available.

There has been help from students at Edna Manley College for the Visual and Performing Arts, as well as training of chefs in preparation of authentic Jamaican food, HEART helping to facilitate that process.

The Sunday Gleaner asked Pringle if this rebranding may harm the ultra-relaxed image of the former 'West End' and he said "it will more enhance it. It becomes more marketable, because of what 'One Love' represents on a worldwide level", pointing to the diversity of the area where people from many different nationalities live.

The intention is for the nationally all-inclusive approach to pull in people who want to experience Jamaica, not just visit, so "when people come to Jamaica and ask where I can find the authentic culture they go to One Love Drive," Pringle said.