André Lowe, Senior Staff Reporter

The long-awaited work on the National Stadium swimming pool is expected to finally get under way in January 2010 after the Government committed a portion of funds towards the project, according to John Eyre, president of the Amateur Swimming Association of Jamaica (ASAJ).

Work, which includes the refitting of key plumbing fixtures and a possible patching-up exercise on the actual surface of the pool itself, has been in limbo for sometime because of a lack of funds. Also, the work was further delayed by several weeks, even after the commitment from the Government because of a number of complications that prevented the start of the tender process.

Said Eyre: "The Government has indicated that through the Sports Development Foundation they will be giving us a certain amount of funding. We are preparing the tender to put it out so that we can have some bids. That is behind schedule because of a number of engineering issues, but we are working to have it out very soon.

"We are hoping to have it (pool repair) done fairly soon. I'm hoping that the work will be started by the end of January (2010), or at least by the middle of February," he added.

Financial input

Eyre declined to give any indication as to the cost of the project in an effort to protect the integrity of the bidding process, but offered that the ASAJ was satisfied with what he termed the "sufficient" financial input of the Government.

As a result of the pool closure, many of the ASAJ programmes, such as its Swim Jamaica school programme, suffered after they were forced to move to the Bournemouth Bath facility.

However, though a blessing for the officials, Bournemouth faces its own difficulties and several parents and schools have turned their back on the facilities there because of the negative perception of the surrounding communities, as well as its distance.

Eyre explained: "The programmes that we have are mostly done at Bournemouth now because the National Stadium pools are closed. We moved all of our programmes there and unfortunately, some of the schools did not like the fact that we were going down there. For example, you have some schools in the Red Hills area, and that proved to be a transportation problem for them, so they either dropped out or moved to a different programme."

He added: "There is also a perception that it is unsafe down there, but when they actually get there and experience it for themselves, they realise that it's not as bad as they thought. But there is definitely a perception, and it definitely hurts the programme."