PE­TER CHRISTO­PHER

pe­ter.christo­pher@guardian.co.tt

Af­ter waves of crit­i­cisms, in­clud­ing one com­ing from Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley, the pro­pos­al to lay down an as­tro­turf at the Nel­son Man­dela Park has been shelved.

Port-of-Spain May­or Joel Mar­tinez con­firmed to Guardian Me­dia that he had put the plan on pause af­ter nu­mer­ous dis­sent­ing voic­es to the plan, hours af­ter Dr Row­ley joined the cho­rus of those against the plan.

In a so­cial me­dia post the Prime Min­is­ter said, “Re­plac­ing the nat­ur­al en­vi­ron­ment at Man­dela Park with ar­ti­fi­cial turf is a sales­man’s fool­ish idea that ought not to waste the time or the re­sources of the Port-of-Spain Cor­po­ra­tion.”

He con­tin­ued, “The Gov­ern­ment is sure the Cor­po­ra­tion can put its time and mon­ey to much bet­ter use and spare us all this un­nec­es­sary ag­gra­va­tion.”

May­or Joel Mar­tinez said he had no choice but to lis­ten to the voice of the peo­ple.

“Hav­ing heard all the neg­a­tive out­cry and re­sponse from the pub­lic I de­cid­ed to put a pause on it, and I will not be seek­ing pro­pos­als for de­vel­op­ment of the park now,” he said.

The pro­posed re­vi­tal­i­sa­tion of Nel­son Man­dela Park first dis­cussed on Mon­day, Ju­ly 26 dur­ing an on­line pub­lic con­sul­ta­tion host­ed by the Port-of-Spain City Cor­po­ra­tion with res­i­dents of the en­vi­rons and stake­hold­ers.

The project was planned as a pub­lic-pri­vate part­ner­ship which was to cost TT$20 mil­lion.

Port-of-Spain Mayor Joel Martinez.

SHIRLEY BAHADUR

In ad­di­tion to push­back from res­i­dents of Wood­brook, St Clair and One Wood­brook Place, an on­line pe­ti­tion has since been start­ed ob­ject­ing giv­en con­cerns that in ad­di­tion to the loss of an­oth­er green space, con­trol of the park could have been hand­ed over to a pre­ferred pri­vate part­ner on a long term lease which would lim­it ac­cess to the pub­lic. Op­po­si­tion MP Khadi­jah Ameen al­so slammed the project and the $20 mil­lion re­port­ed­ly re­quired to fa­cil­i­tate it while sev­er­al oth­er re­gion­al cor­po­ra­tions were lack­ing fund­ing.

The may­or, how­ev­er, said while a $20 mil­lion fig­ure had been at­tached to the pro­posed re­vi­tal­i­sa­tion, the Cor­po­ra­tion would not have been the or­gan­i­sa­tion fund­ing it.

“When we put the con­sul­ta­tion out there, we did not have any fund­ing or any mon­ey. We were go­ing to look at it from a pub­lic-pri­vate part­ner­ship and hope that an in­vestor de­cid­ed to see how the park can be utilised by the young and the de­vel­op­ment of the sports,” said Mar­tinez.

“They were go­ing to put out the mon­ey, be­cause we didn’t have the fund­ing for it. We lis­ten to the pub­lic. This is what they have said. They are not in­ter­est­ed in any fur­ther de­vel­op­ment of the park in that re­gard. So I have to go with the voice of the pub­lic,” he said.

Mar­tinez said the con­sul­ta­tion came about af­ter sev­er­al un­so­licit­ed pro­pos­als, as well as the City Cor­po­ra­tion’s own strug­gles to get fund­ing to main­tain the park.

He al­so ex­plained that the pro­pos­al was one as­sess­ment of a po­ten­tial way to bring an ad­di­tion­al at­trac­tion to the city.

“And in this point in time, when we were look­ing at the re­vi­tal­iza­tion of the city of Port-of-Spain, we felt that it may be...now ‘was’...a good op­por­tu­ni­ty to make a pro­pos­al to the pub­lic in­di­cat­ing that we can put the park or make the park or give it a sense of fur­ther ap­pre­ci­a­tion for pub­lic use,” he said.

Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley.

“We have heard from peo­ple the fact that as­tro­turf is one of those things that a lot of sport is played on in a lot of de­vel­oped coun­tries and de­vel­oped cities and we were try­ing to find ways to bring peo­ple back to the city.”

Hun­dreds of peo­ple com­ment­ed un­der the Prime Min­is­ter’s Face­book post, agree­ing with his stance on the mat­ter.

“Def­i­nite­ly agree with you there. Tak­ing a nat­u­ral­ly green space and re­plac­ing it with some­thing ar­ti­fi­cial....sense­less,” a re­spon­der with the first name ‘Nades’ said while ‘Razia’ added, “Ex­cel­lent com­ment, Prime Min­is­ter, with which every right-think­ing cit­i­zen will agree but how could such a reck­less, ir­re­spon­si­ble pro­pos­al have been made at City Hall to start with???”

Mean­while a pe­ti­tion launched on­line against the project via change.org, gar­nered more than 3,600 peo­ple signed up to it by 8 pm last night.