Its all over, now back to reality
The playing fields and support infrastructure will not benefit from the frequent usage for anything other than cricket for some time to come.
At Arnos Vale the approach to the new facility seems to be to treat it like a primadonna of sorts. We will sit back and boast of how good it looks while the elements take a heavy toll with rusting everywhere.
The Government does not have the resources to facilitate the kind of maintenance that is necessitated for Arnos Vale alone, far less for the other new and/or refurbished facilities.
The NSC has never been supplied with the resources in the past to facilitate adequate maintenance of one facility at Arnos Vale. Nothing will change in this regard.
Perhaps we should also raise here the suggested approach that the new Arnos Vale facility be put under separate management, not directly under the NSC.
This suggestion seems to ring as some sort of nepotism. It may well be that the Government of the day may be seeking to feather somebody else’s cap in so far as the creation of yet another entity for the sole management of Arnos Vale is concerned.
The NSC is in woeful need of overhaul and this may well be where the Government should be channeling its energies rather than seeking piecemeal solutions of the order being suggested at present.
There is no way in the short to medium term that without significant access to the football fraternity the authorities would be able to raise revenue from sporting activities at the Arnos Vale or any of its other newly refurbishe
d venues. The other revenue generating options are entertainment and religious activities.
Initially we had a fanciful document that heralded hotel development as part of the CWC2007 legacy here. That was never really on the cards and so it was wrong for the LOC or any other authority here to have suggested it in the first place.
Our legacy document stated, the inception of the Bed & Breakfast and Homestay Programme for Cricket World Cup 2007 not only seeks to supplement the existing hotel accommodation during this time but will remain in place hence on.
One is not certain that the LOC was serious when it placed the aforementioned paragraph in a document. One would really like to know where in St Vincent and the Grenadines any institution has established itself under the aforementioned programme.