Pri­or Be­har­ry

Queen Eliz­a­beth II and her hus­band Philip, the Duke of Ed­in­burgh, will stay at the new Carl­ton Sa­van­nah in Cas­cade when they come for the Com­mon­wealth Heads of Gov­ern­ment Meet­ing (CHOGM) in No­vem­ber. Gov­ern­ment sources con­firmed last night that the Roy­al cou­ple will stay at the bou­tique ho­tel al­though it is not 100 per cent com­plet­ed. Mem­bers of a Buck­ing­ham Palace team, in the coun­try last week, did ex­press con­cern about the readi­ness of the ho­tel in time for CHOGM, sources said. But, the team was as­sured that the pres­i­den­tial suite would be ready for the Queen who will make her third vis­it to the coun­try. She was here in 1966 and 1985.

A mem­ber of the de­vel­op­ment com­pa­ny of the ho­tel, Phillip Hamel-Smith, con­firmed yes­ter­day that the ho­tel was prepar­ing a spe­cial suite for the Queen. How­ev­er, he did not say if the Roy­al cou­ple will in­deed stay there.

The Carl­ton Sa­van­nah was said to be more than 90 per cent com­plet­ed and was al­ready open for busi­ness. But, there is still work be­ing done and this has raised con­cerns with the Buck­ing­ham Palace team, sources said. A Gov­ern­ment source close to the meet­ings said: "The Buck­ing­ham peo­ple like the area, but did not want the Queen and her hus­band to stay in a ho­tel where there is work still go­ing on." But, a Carl­ton Sa­van­nah of­fi­cial, who wished not to be named, said the ho­tel was "putting on the fin­ish­ing touch­es and it will be more than ready by late No­vem­ber."

The ho­tel had run in­to fi­nan­cial dif­fi­cul­ties af­ter be­ing over bud­get and be­hind sched­ule. It had asked the Gov­ern­ment for help by pur­chas­ing 12 rooms, di­rec­tor Nor­man Tang said in an in­ter­view with an­oth­er pa­per a few weeks ago. But, the Gov­ern­ment re­fused to pump any mon­ey in­to the ho­tel.

Trade and In­dus­try Min­is­ter Mar­i­ano Browne, head of the cab­i­net-ap­point­ed com­mit­ted to over­see CHOGM, said last week Wednes­day that the Gov­ern­ment was not get­ting in­volved in the Carl­ton Sa­van­nah. He said, "It is a pri­vate sec­tor mat­ter." But, Hamel-Smith said the fi­nanc­ing of the project was not in ques­tion and it was be­ing han­dled by First Cit­i­zens.

The Queen and her en­tourage need at least 40 rooms when she comes to Trinidad from No­vem­ber 26 to 28. Ac­cord­ing to the ho­tel's Web site, oth­er mem­bers of the ho­tel's de­vel­op­ment team in­clude chair­man Stu­art White, who has an es­tab­lished ca­reer track record in in­ter­na­tion­al in­vest­ment bank­ing; As­so­ci­at­ed Brands chair­man Arthur Lok Jack; and Robert MacLel­lan, who has a more than 30 years ex­pe­ri­ence in the in­ter­na­tion­al hos­pi­tal­i­ty in­dus­try around the globe. Hamel-Smith is the man­ag­ing part­ner of the law firm M Hamel-Smith and Co. The ho­tel boasts of 165 guest rooms and 55 suites.