President’s ground row

St Ann’s/Cascade/Hololo residents are hoping to have the President’s Grounds issue settled when they meet with Prime Minister Patrick Manning at 2.30 pm today at Whitehall.

The meeting follows a letter delivered to the PM’s office at Whitehall last week advising him that they will hold no more meetings with Calder Hart, chairman of the Urban Development Company of TT (Udecott).

The residents are dissatisfied that after three meetings no progress has been made towards a resolution. A letter was also de-livered to Health Minister John Rahael who is the Member of Parliament for the area.

“Our agenda will be the grounds,” Phyllis Hoyte, interim secretary of the committee said yesterday about the meeting with the PM.

She said her own view on the matter was that the committee should not get into a battle about “who said what” since this will not be productive. She said residents wanted to meet with the PM to get the issue of the grounds settled.

In the letter to Manning, residents said Hart had not been able to negotiate in a meaningful way with the community. “We have been negotiating in good faith, and expect the same from our PM and his representative. There has been no progress at all, in fact, the discussions have been going backwards rather than forwards,” the letter stated.

Earlier this year, when residents asked for a meeting with Manning to discuss reports of the grounds being annexed, they were advised to meet with Hart.

They have rejected Udecott’s latest position that it will take “only half” of the grounds.

Udecott has proposed a rugby field, bleachers, changing rooms and washroom facilities at the grounds. It is also proposing to develop the site north of President’s Grounds to include a new community centre, meeting room and storage space for the community and a police station.

News that expansion of the Prime Minister’s Residence into a part of the grounds sparked a large protest by residents earlier this year.