Robert Stephens, director of the Jamaica Legacy Programme, explains to stakeholders, in Westmoreland, how to maximise their potential to secure a sustainable legacy from Cricket World Cup 2007. - photo by Dalton Laing

Dalton Laing, Gleaner Writer

FROME SPORTS Complex in Westmoreland has been selected as the centrepiece for the parish's 2007 Cricket World Cup activities.

The Westmoreland Parish Organising Committee (POC), which has been meeting over the past eight months with its main sponsors, SCJ - Frome, the Social Development Commission (SDC) and Mayfield Falls, has decided that the opportunity should be seized to maximise the parish's potential during the event. In light of this, a series of events will be held at the complex simultaneously with the games in Trelawny and Kingston.

According to the executive chairperson of the POC, Atherine Lee, who was addressing journalists and sponsors at a press conference at the Frome Staff Club earlier this week, it is the aim of her committee to maximise the benefits from Cricket World Cup 2007 by promoting Brand Westmoreland.

"Our goal is to ensure that Westmoreland secures part of the legacy of this event in a sustainable way," Lee said.

"The Westmoreland Homecoming Theme Village concept is to establish a place where we will provide big-screen broadcasts of selected matches in a fun, family atmosphere," she said. The legacy, Lee said, was to have a world-class cricket field at Frome in addition to a football field, hard courts, museum and shopping village which will be done on a phased basis at a cost of an estimated $115 million.

Benefits

In support of the vision of the Westmoreland people, Robert Stephens, director of the Jamaica Legacy Programme, explained that the benefits of this gesture were beyond the thoughts of most persons.

"The legacy that is going to be generated out of this cricket event is far bigger than many of us can understand and contemplate," said Stephens. "This is something that is going to benefit us for the next 10 to 15 years and beyond," he said. Stephens explained that the country was expected to earn an additional US$400 million (J$26.8 billion) over a five-year period out of new investments arising from the fact that a large number of entrepreneurs from cricket-playing countries, which had never done business with Jamaica, would be seeking business opportunities during the two-month period of the Cup.

Urging people to become a part of this new wave of development and investment, Stephens said Jamaica was aiming to be the sporting, cultural and heritage hub of the Caribbean.

He also asked the stakeholders of Westmoreland to take full advantage of what is coming. "The reality is that Westmoreland sits on the edge of becoming a parish that is going to develop the assets which are in many cases in the raw, but need to be honed to take full advantage of what is coming," Stephens said.