Govt to build more play parks

Government's housing strategy moving forward will no longer focus simply on the building of houses but will also include recreational spaces, Housing and Urban Development Minister Edmund Dillon said yesterday.

Play parks are already a common feature of several housing developments, Dillon told reporters after the official opening of the Adventure Housing Development Community Park, Plymouth, Tobago,

"It is a continuing work that will expand to all of the communities throughout Trinidad and Tobago. We have done it in several areas. We did on quite recently in Harp Place, Belmont. We did one in Couva. We did one in Corinth. We did one in Point Fortin and today (yesterday), we are in Plymouth," he said.

The $300,000 community park is an initiative undertaken by First Citizens, the Division of Settlements, Tobago House of Assembly (THA) and the Housing Development Corporation (HDC), in keeping with the latter's mandate to provide housing and community facilities to low and middle income families.

Dillon said such facilities are vital in the fight against crime.

"I always say that crime is multi-dimensional in nature and, therefore, if you have to attack crime, there must be a multi-dimensional effort. It can't be just a law enforcement effort but a community effort."

He added: "By the children coming out and finding place to burn their energies.... If you don't find areas or ways for children to exercise, to burn up that stored up energy, it will keep them away from being distracted and looking at crime. They will have fun. If children have fun as children ought to do, then crime would definitely be affected and be reduced."

Dillon said the ministry is concerned with building communities.

"When one looks at today's world and you see the kind of activities that children are involved in, you realise they are more indoors than outdoors, especially with those video games. But what the Ministry of Housing and Urban and Development and, in particular, the HDC, has said, let us look at not just building homes but building communities. And part of that building communities is to ensure there is a common space, that the people in those communities can come together to recreate, to meet one another."

Chief Secretary Kelvin Charles said the THA is currently engaged in a conversation with one of the state agencies to develop housing projects at Adelphine, Mason Hall, and in Sou Sou lands.

"We have a business proposal to examine and at that point we will seek to ensure that whatever comes out of it would be to the mutual benefit of the agencies and ourselves."

Charles said the initiative will be a public-private partnership arrangement "because we do not have an agency similar to the HDC in Tobago and our funding, in respect of our (THA) allocation, does not allow for this kind of thing in a significant way. And, therefore, we have to embrace the opportunity and the option of a public-private partnership to continue to provide housing solutions to our residents."

Saying he is extremely satisfied about the community park, Charles said the project falls within the THA's overall strategic development plan.

He said a pre-school is also earmarked to be built in Adventure "thereby ensuring we did not only provide housing but sites and services."