An aggressive lighting programme is currently underway for state-owned playing fields, Minister of Sports and Community Empowerment Charles Griffith said on Friday.
Speaking from the well of Parliament as the Estimates debate for the sports and community development appropriations continued, he stated that the focus currently was on lighting public playing fields, and several locations have been retrofitted and rotten poles replaced.
He was responding to government backbencher William Duguid’s query for an update on the lighting programme.
Griffith said: “There is a programme in place that we will systematically get to all of those fields. There are some fields that are not ours. For example, in the YMCA, this was earmarked as a dedicated football field, but we know that we need to put lights on that particular location. So there is a systematic way that we’re going about ensuring that all of the fields are lit, because it is one of the ways that we’re going to grow the sports by having communities involved in the process. So if the pyramid at the bottom of sports is broad, then I think those diamonds in the rough will have an opportunity to rise to the top.”
Owing to budget constraints, there were seven fields to be completed that were not part of the original project, according to the National Sports Council’s Senior Superintendent of Works Nicholas Matthias.
These were Ignatius Byer Primary School, and Crab Hill, both in St Lucy, YMPC in Beckles Road, and Queen’s Park, The Lodge School in St John, Proute in St Thomas and Gemswick, St Philip, he said.
Addressing the concerns of St James South MP Sandra Husbands on the need for community facilities, particularly in St James, she was told that several prospective venues have already been looked at, including the old St John the Baptist School on Holders Hill, but a final decision has not yet been taken.
Chief Community Development Officer John Hollingsworth said: “We did put some funds in the Estimates to ensure that that particular void is addressed in St James South and St James Central, because the closest community centres to there would be Weston, as well as Eden Lodge. It’s very significant. So we do recognise the urgent need for this facility, and we are working towards that.”
Griffith gave an assurance that plans were also in place to ensure that all fields and facilities would be regularly maintained.
“I have asked the National Sports Council to put centre management committees in place at all of our pavilions that will allow a team or a grouping from within the community to be able to feed back information to the National Sports Council in relation to issues with the property and the playing field as well.”
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