New maintenance unit coming for community centres, says official

A new maintenance unit is to be established in the Ministry of Sport, Youth, and Community Empowerment to help deal with mounting issues at a number of community centres across the island, a senior official said Tuesday.

Yolande Skeete, acting chief community development officer, made the disclosure as she responded to concerns from St Philip North MP Dr Sonia Browne that the St Mark’s Resource Centre in her constituency was in dire need of repair.

Skeete said the centre had already been identified for repair. But, after subpar work by several contractors at a handful of facilities, a new maintenance team within the ministry was to be formed soon.

“We’ve sought for this financial year to establish a maintenance unit. That maintenance unit would treat to all levels of maintenance because you would appreciate that with close to 40 facilities and ensuring that members of the public are able to go in [to them], that we can treat all levels of maintenance.

“The challenge is that we were dealing with persons who are trained in social work, and if we employ the services of a plumber, we [had] to rely on the plumber’s word that the plumping has been fixed effectively. We found that yes, sometimes it is not what is usually reported,” he said.

Skeete further revealed that the St Mark’s Centre itself has been plagued with problems since its construction because of some of the contractor’s work.

“That facility was opened in 2016/2017, and we have had challenges with that facility from the onset. When the facility was getting ready to be handed over, I noted that the ramp was built but persons with a disability would not have been able to access the centre because the ramp did not go all the way to the doorway. What we had to do in order to address that was to ensure then that the contractor had to come back and ensure that the slope was such that persons with ability were able to access that centre.

“We’ve found that in relation to some centres, we’ve had to approach maintenance in three phases. Certainly, yes, where you can see the wear and tear on St Mark’s Resource Centre, certainly we would treat to that, but that would be a level of minor maintenance in comparison to those other centres where we had to discontinue centre use.” (SB)