Adrian Frater, News Editor

WESTERN BUREAU:

AS THE Government continues to procrastinate with regards to putting a permanent management structure in place for the new US$30 million Trelawny Multi-purpose Stadium, the Trelawny Cricket Association (TCA) has announced plans to intensify it lobby for the use the facility.

"We will be cranking up our efforts to get it for our parish games," said Phillip Service, president of the TCA. "We have had to be playing our Super Cup home games outside of the parish because we have no suitable facilities here."

In his post-Cabinet press briefing at Jamaica House on Monday, Information Minister Donald Buchanan said Jamaica Cricket 2007, which managed the facility in the lead-up to 2007 ICC Cricket World Cup opening ceremony, has been asked to extend its management for the next three months.

"Over the next three months, we will be giving due consideration to completing the plans as to how we are going to be utilising the facility going forward," Buchanan said. "We will be placing an emphasis on the development of sports tourism and an emphasis on the development of our creative industry and the development of our sporting talent."

Costly to maintain

However, in his statement, Buchanan acknowledged the maintenance of the facility, which has not been used since the March 11 World Cup opening ceremony, was proving quite costly.

"The maintenance cost is approximately $4 million per month and that responsibility will be on the National Housing Trust until the end of September," said Buchanan. "At that time, Government will take a decision as to what is best for the facility."

It was anticipated that Government would have put a management team in place for the 25,000-seat stadium immediately after the World Cup opening ceremony to silence those who were predicting that the facility would ultimately become a white elephant. However, that was not done.

Before the start of the World Cup, Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller intimated that the Government was looking at expanding the Trelawny stadium into a full-fledged sporting arena, to include a games village and facilities for other sports, such as netball and baseball.

Early last month, news broke that the stadium was being vandalised and fixtures removed. However, investigations by The Gleaner revealed that the claim was not true and that round-the-clock security was in place at the venue.