Just days after calls for a community centre for Haynesville, the parliamentary representative for the area has promised a new facility to serve two constituencies in the heart of St James.
Residents in St James South and St James Central received promising news as plans for a new community centre were announced by St James South MP, Sandra Husbands.
She disclosed that the proposed site is at Holders Hill, encompassing a substantial piece of land that extends into Durant’s Village.
The site was previously earmarked by the Maria Holder Memorial Trust for a project. The existing buildings on the property once housed the former St John the Baptist Primary School, and later, a temporary station for the Holetown Police.
Husbands told Barbados TODAY: “The Trust was seeking to build a nursery school. They had looked at the school as a possible place for it but they evaluated it and said that they would build someplace separately. So I asked if we could get the property to convert it into a proper community centre in the space.”
Her announcement came after community activist Peter Skeete, founder of the Haynesville Youth Group, emphasised the inadequacy of the current space at the Haynesville Police Outpost, where over 300 young people are engaged in activities.
Skeete expressed the need for a larger facility to cater to the community’s cultural and recreational requirements: “If we can have a community centre that is large enough, we can expose our young people to more things.”
Husbands has approached the Ministry of Community Development to repurpose the property into a comprehensive community centre, citing the absence of such facilities in St James, including St James South and St James Central.
“St James is 23 000 strong and 10 900 voters from St James South. St James Central also does not have a community centre. What we have is the sports pavilion which is not big enough to do community work, so Minister [of Community Development, Charles] Griffith has indicated that they are developing a plan to be able to provide the places that don’t have, because we would be two communities that don’t have, two constituencies that don’t have a community centre,” she said
The envisioned community centre aims to serve multiple purposes – providing space for classes, performances, talent showcases, and community events like concerts. Plans also include transforming an adjacent building into an outdoor café and creating an area for functions and outdoor gatherings.
Husbands said: “There are a lot of talented people in St James South, for example, and we always need places to have concerts and things of that nature. You want the community to be able to do things like fundraising.
“There is another building right next to it on the outside that is of no use, so what I want to do is to see if we can turn that into an outside cafe where you could hold a function and then you can use the grounds to put your chairs and so on.”
Furthermore, efforts are directed towards beautifying the grounds to accommodate small children who lack adequate play areas in Holders Hill, where the Desmond Haynes Facility is located, and neighbouring Durants, and Kings Village. Another building on the premises is being considered for use by the District Emergency Organisation (DEO) to house emergency equipment, streamlining access during crises, said the MP.
Husbands emphasised that careful planning, budgeting, and logistical considerations will be needed for the community centre to become a reality.
She said: “We think that this is a useful space. Minister [Griffith] said he understands what we are talking about and he sees it as something that is feasible but we now have to work out when they can do it, work out the budgeting, that kind of thing, to be able to establish that centre there. So it is going to take some time but we will continue to work and push to try to get that.” (RG)
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