Two Cen­tral Trinidad com­mu­ni­ties can now en­joy the ca­ma­raderie and joy of sport on their up­grad­ed recre­ation grounds. The Sports Com­pa­ny of Trinidad and To­ba­go (SPORTT) com­plet­ed works at the Beau­car­reau and Phoenix Park and hand­ed over the keys last Thurs­day to a rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the Cou­va/Tabaquite/Tal­paro Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion.

Anil Roberts, Min­is­ter of Sport hailed the Sports Com­pa­ny for their qual­i­ty work in en­sur­ing that com­mu­ni­ties have ac­cess to recre­ation fa­cil­i­ties. "I know the peo­ple who live in these com­mu­ni­ties are ex­treme­ly grate­ful for the op­por­tu­ni­ty to ac­cess and en­joy the ap­pro­pri­ate venues for sport and recre­ation. This is all part of the Gov­ern­ment's ef­forts in all sec­tors to de­vel­op safe spaces where sport­ing tal­ent can be nur­tured and where crit­i­cal fam­i­ly and com­mu­ni­ty ties can be forged."

Both fa­cil­i­ties are now ready for use with the fol­low­ing ameni­ties:

�2 Out­field with turf wick­ets

�2 Hard courts for bas­ket­ball and net­ball

�2 500-seater pavil­ion with ramp as well as of­fice, meet­ing and stor­age spaces

�2 Change rooms with lock­ers, show­ers, toi­lets (in­clud­ing dis­abled ac­cess toi­let)

�2 Two crick­et prac­tice nets

�2 Jog­ging track

�2 Car park

�2 Perime­ter Fenc­ing

�2 Drainage

Phoenix Park Recre­ation Ground saw ac­tion as ear­ly as Sun­day with a sched­uled women's crick­et league match be­tween Tech­nocrats and Crick­et Lovers. Works Su­per­vi­sor at the Cor­po­ra­tion, Ian Gokool said the up­grades were very time­ly and suit­ed the needs of both com­mu­ni­ties. He added that both grounds will be in­de­pen­dent­ly man­ages by a com­mit­tee of stake­hold­ers, in­clud­ing re­spec­tive vil­lage coun­cils and sports clubs in the area. He said, "It will be a com­mu­ni­ty ef­fort in or­der to max­imise the use of the grounds and to main­tain the pris­tine con­di­tions in which the grounds were hand­ed over."

Sec­re­tary of the Beau­car­reau Vil­lage Coun­cil, Reena Per­sad said she was grate­ful for the work done by the Sports Com­pa­ny es­pe­cial­ly giv­en the state of the ground be­fore. "This was just an emp­ty lot ba­si­cal­ly, be­fore this up­grade. Peo­ple used to park trail­ers here and we had to jump over a drain to ac­cess it. But now that there are prop­er fa­cil­i­ties, there is no end to the kinds of events that we [Vil­lage Coun­cil] could host, and not just sport but fam­i­ly day ac­tiv­i­ties and cul­tur­al events as well. I am look­ing for­ward to hav­ing reg­u­lar aer­o­bics ses­sions on the hard court as well as bring­ing my fam­i­ly to see crick­et and foot­ball match­es, right here in my com­mu­ni­ty."

Shar­ing sim­i­lar sen­ti­ments was Gan­garam Gopaul, Coun­cil­lor for Brechin Cas­tle/Es­per­an­za. He said, "We got a re­al­ly nice fa­cil­i­ty here and the prepa­ra­tion of the out­field and pitch are ex­cel­lent. I can fore­see a busy time for the ground but we are de­ter­mined to main­stream the fa­cil­i­ties so they can be en­joyed for gen­er­a­tions to come."

Phoenix Park, Beau­car­reau and Knowles Street are the three recre­ation grounds al­ready hand­ed over by the Sports Com­pa­ny of Trinidad and To­ba­go, whose re­mit it is to up­grade these grounds for the ben­e­fit of grass­roots sport and com­mu­ni­ty en­hance­ment. 19 more grounds are cur­rent­ly un­der con­struc­tion at var­i­ous lo­ca­tions across the coun­try. Dur­ing the tour of the grounds, Sports Com­pa­ny of­fi­cials in­formed those gath­ered that the new fa­cil­i­ties could al­so now ac­com­mo­date the Youth Sport Camps held dur­ing va­ca­tion pe­ri­ods, which in­struct chil­dren and youth on the fun­da­men­tals of var­i­ous sports free of charge. The venues, as they are clos­er to home and eas­i­er to ac­cess, there­by en­gen­der­ing high­er par­tic­i­pa­tion rates in these com­mu­ni­ties.

These han­dovers are large­ly op­er­a­tional, and for the ben­e­fit of the cus­to­di­ans of the fa­cil­i­ties but cer­e­mo­ni­al open­ings to be held at oth­er venues will be an­nounced with­in com­mu­ni­ties. In the mean­time, res­i­dents are free to use the fa­cil­i­ties as guid­ed by the re­spec­tive Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion.