Mel Mullings: Film Calls for Justice Over Jamaica’s Beach access: “Jamaica Is Rising”
Ahead of the London screening of Beach Inna Bondage: The Fight for Jamaica’s Coastline, Mel Mullings, RMT Union Reparations Conference organiser and GACuk Co-Chair, has shared the following statement on the ongoing debate around beach access in Jamaica.
WICFF 2026: Beach Inna Bondage – The Fight for Jamaica’s Coastline Saturday 3 October 2026 | 6PM–8PM LEX2 Livesey Exchange 567 Old Kent Road, London SE1 5EW
The screening will be followed by a programme of short films and a panel discussion exploring displacement, public access, community, belonging and who gets to decide what happens to Jamaica’s coastline.
Statement from Mel Mullings
As requested a longer statement from me regarding the Beach Access issue.
This is a national scandal and a direct continuation of oppressive colonial frameworks that the people of Jamaica are being locked out of their own shores. Under archaic legislation like the Jamaica Beach Control Act of 1956, a damaging relic that has persisted for 70 years. Ordinary Jamaicans are either priced out or completely blocked by physical barriers, leaving them entirely unable to access the beach and the foreshore.
The notion that someone in the UK would ever be forced to pay or be physically barred from visiting a public beach is utterly ludicrous; it is a violation so profound it would never even be countenanced here. Yet under the sovereign head of the Crown, this dispossession is happening unchecked, directly affecting local livelihoods and enabling the systematic dispossession of the Jamaican people. This unchecked exploitation goes hand in hand with the ecocide of the land. Our natural environments are being ruthlessly exploited rather than preserved, driving a deepening environmental crisis. Furthermore, we completely reject the weak legislative and policy proposals advanced by Prime Minister Andrew Holness. Far from improving the rights of the Jamaican people, these measures fail to dismantle the structural barriers of exclusion and risk making an already intolerable situation even worse. Cosmetic adjustments and conditional access frameworks are not enough; we demand that these inadequate laws be entirely repealed and replaced to guarantee the Jamaican people full, unconditional, and inalienable access to their beaches.
I am profoundly proud of the Jamaica Beach Birthright Environmental Movement (JaBBEM) and the vital strides they have made alongside the Blue Lagoon Alliance and activists across Jamaica and the global diaspora. Jamaica is rising. The screening of Beach Inna Bondage: The Fight for Jamaica’s Coastline on Saturday, 3 October at Lex2 Live Sea Exchange (567 Old Kent Road, London) is a powerful endorsement of this growing movement, extending global awareness of the profound inequalities facing the Jamaican people and showing just how deeply we stand in solidarity with them.
Mel Mullings
RMT Union Reparations conference organiser and GACuk Co-Chair
