By Charmaine Austin, Staff Reporter
The site where the new indoor netball facility is slated to be built. The large deposit of earth in the background had been dug up to facilitate construction of a new fence around the Independence Park complex. - Ian Allen/Staff Photographer
JAMAICA IS to stage the 11th World Netball Championship next July but could end up extremely embarrassed as construction of the new indoor playing facility has not yet started.
The design was completed in May and the contractors, the Urban Development Corporation (UDC), promised work would start in early June but not even the foundation has been laid.
When contacted yesterday, Ted Duncan, the UDC's project manager under the San Jose Accord programme with responsibility for G.C. Foster College and Independence Park, turned questions over to the company's Corporate Relations Department but it could shed no light on the matter.
"What netball facility? We don't have any information about that. You will have to contact Mr. Duncan about that or fax us some questions and we will take it to the relevant people," said Doreen O'Connor, an officer who took the call.
When contacted again, Duncan responded: "I was told I must not respond to the press now and that I must let my corporate relations people respond, so I can't respond."
At a press conference held in May, Duncan had said the facility would be completed by April 2003.
Work, he said, would have commenced as soon as the World Junior Track and Field Championships were over in July. That event is long gone and the UDC's promises, according to the local netball association, are beginning to look as empty as the field where ground is to be broken over at Stadium West.
Budgeted to cost US$6.25 million, the enclosed, air-conditioned facility (60,000 square feet) should boast world-class features with the ability to accommodate 4,000 persons. That capacity could be increased significantly with the removal of one of two wooden courts to be laid.
It all seems just a dream at this time and Jamaica Netball Association president Molly Rhone says she is "very concerned".
"I'm very concerned. It's a natural concern because only 10 months are left before the start of the championship and I don't think that's enough time to get a building up and ready. We've been getting a barrage of calls and e-mails from countries asking what's happening to the stadium and I really don't know what to tell them.
"Twenty countries have already submitted their entries and paid for their accommodation so we are really concerned about it," she said.
The existing National Arena can only accommodate one court and as a result is not big enough to stage the event. Rhone shudders at the thought of the championship not being staged and is anxious for work to begin soon.
"I wouldn't even want to consider the option of the championship not being staged. We already have a sponsor and an office and a host of other things in place and it is too late to call on another country to host the event at this late stage.
"The country has so much to gain from our staging of this event and I'm really hopeful that work will begin soon. It just can't be played in the National Arena alone and on one court. It's not big enough to hold two courts and we need at least two," Rhone added.
Shooting for Success, the newsletter of the International Federation of Netball Associations, quoted UDC chairman Vin Lawrence as saying he was confident that the new indoor facility would be completed by the end of April 2003, giving the JNA the opportunity to test the venue before the World Champs.
"We may not even have enough time to test out the courts based on how things are looking right now," Rhone said.
