Ed­die Hart Grounds and Gold­en Grove Sa­van­nah will soon be a re­gion­al sport­ing cen­tre.

The Sports Com­pa­ny of T&T (SPORTT) has been man­dat­ed to de­vel­op this sport­ing hub to ac­com­mo­date mul­ti-pur­pose sport­ing sur­faces and ameni­ties, so that qual­i­ty sur­faces can be eas­i­ly ac­ces­si­ble to na­tion­als want­i­ng to par­tic­i­pate in sport­ing ac­tiv­i­ties, up and com­ing ath­letes through com­mu­ni­ty clubs and groups, while re­tain­ing green spaces for ca­su­al recre­ation­al users, in a safe en­vi­ron­ment.

Fa­cil­i­ties will in­clude an in­ter­na­tion­al stan­dard foot­ball field on the east ground with sta­di­um light­ing; an ath­let­ics track on the east ground with light­ing; a 900-seat cov­ered pavil­ion, with ded­i­cat­ed chang­ing fa­cil­i­ties for play­ers, pub­lic toi­lets and con­ces­sion­aire spaces, and an in­door sport­ing fa­cil­i­ty build­ing that will con­tain:

a) 25m swim­ming pool

b) Open gym­na­si­um area

c) Aer­o­bics and Spin Class Area

d) Box­ing and Mar­tial arts area

e) Mul­ti-pur­pose Court

f) Squash Area

g) Ad­min­is­tra­tive Of­fices

h) Change room, Show­er and Toi­let Fa­cil­i­ties.

There are al­so plans for an in­ter­na­tion­al stan­dard crick­et field on the west ground with sta­di­um light­ing; a ded­i­cat­ed jog­ging path on the east ground with light­ing; two (2) small goal foot­ball courts with light­ing and a chil­dren's play park with equip­ment.

A re­lease from the Sports Com­pa­ny stat­ed that the en­hance­ment of the sa­van­nah was for sport­ing en­deav­ours and will fa­cil­i­tate in­di­vid­u­als who live in com­mu­ni­ties from San Juan to Ari­ma who can use the es­tab­lished trans­port routes (East­ern Main Road and Pri­or­i­ty Bus Route) to par­tic­i­pate in sport­ing ac­tiv­i­ties on up­grad­ed fields and sur­faces for crick­et, foot­ball, net­ball and bas­ket­ball. Ad­di­tion­al­ly, there will be a 25m in­door swim­ming pool at the in­door fa­cil­i­ty which can be used to ad­dress the lack of wa­ter com­pe­ten­cy skills of many. Out­side of the com­mu­ni­ty swim­ming pool in San­gre Grande, this will be the on­ly pub­lic (ie free) swim­ming pool along the East-West Cor­ri­dor, mak­ing it a vi­tal ad­di­tion to the fit­ness and health needs of the com­mu­ni­ties in this area.

Ac­cord­ing to the re­lease: "All of the ar­eas on the west­ern end of the fa­cil­i­ty in­clud­ing the play park, recre­ation/pic­nic area, jog­ging track and crick­et field will not be fenced and will there­fore en­cour­age com­mu­ni­ty use as cur­rent­ly ob­tains. The on­ly pro­posed fenced ar­eas will be the foot­ball field and its sur­round­ing ath­let­ic train­ing track as well as the in­door fa­cil­i­ty.

These are the on­ly ar­eas that will re­quire some lev­el of for­mal sched­ul­ing for struc­tured sport­ing events, but as part of the dai­ly op­er­a­tion, cit­i­zens will be free to ac­cess and use these ameni­ties at any time."

The Sports Com­pa­ny is al­so ex­am­in­ing the fea­si­bil­i­ty of set­ting up a com­mu­ni­ty man­age­ment com­mit­tee drawn from the var­i­ous in­ter­est groups to pro­vide over­sight for the en­tire ground/ cen­tre once all works are com­plet­ed. This is one way to en­sure that the in­ter­ests of the com­mu­ni­ty will al­ways be a pri­or­i­ty.

Fol­low­ing re­cent con­sul­ta­tions there were con­cerns raised by in­ter­est groups and cur­rent users of the sa­van­nah/grounds about the de­struc­tion of green space to erect con­crete struc­tures. How­ev­er, al­most 85 per­cent of to­tal area un­der de­vel­op­ment will be grassed.

In or­der to ad­dress oth­er key ar­eas of the con­cern the fol­low­ing ad­just­ments have been pro­posed.

These ad­just­ments in­clude:

phas­ing of con­struc­tion to min­imise in­ter­rup­tion to on­go­ing sport­ing ac­tiv­i­ties

in­creased width and length of jog­ging/run­ning track to ac­com­mo­date the large vol­ume of ca­su­al ath­letes

use of eco-friend­ly, per­me­able ma­te­ri­als for the car park for drainage pur­pos­es

preser­va­tion of wa­ter sources in the con­struc­tion phase and the con­ser­va­tion of en­er­gy in the fa­cil­i­ty's op­er­a­tion

The pro­posed cen­tre/ground is meant to ben­e­fit the largest pos­si­ble num­ber of per­sons as they en­gage in sport and phys­i­cal recre­ation. Far from dis­plac­ing cur­rent users or in­ter­rupt­ing the free flow of breeze and green space, the in­tent is to cre­ate an aes­thet­i­cal­ly pleas­ing and func­tion­al area that cit­i­zens will en­joy for gen­er­a­tions.

It is hoped that not on­ly will per­sons be able to stay healthy but al­so that many suc­cess­ful elite ath­letes will get their start in Tacarigua. Ul­ti­mate­ly, sport must be­come in­im­i­cal to our cul­ture and liveli­hood and this fa­cil­i­ty is one means of achiev­ing this lofty goal.