Tourism Minister Edmund Bartlett has rejected claims that only one per cent of Jamaica’s beaches are accessible to the public.

Speaking during the annual Artisan Village Food Festival in Falmouth, Trelawny on Independence Day, he acknowledged that there may be challenges with access to some individual beaches, but cautioned against using isolated cases to characterise the state of beach access across the country.

“We may have issues with an area. We may have an issue with an owner here … we may have an issue with a process there. [However], we must not make the world define Jamaica as a country that denies its population … access, because … it’s not true,” Bartlett emphasised, adding “we can deal with issues that we have.” He indicated that Jamaica has 70 public beaches, 60 of which have been upgraded in recent years. He further pointed out that only 10 of these are commercially operated, with just five requiring the payment of an entry fee.