THE PEOPLE of Bonnetts, Brittons Hill, St Michael, want more access to the facilities of their multi-purpose court and community centre.

Residents were up in arms yesterday when the court's floodlights, turned on by a team from outside the community on Saturday evening, were left burning all day.

Resident Andre Weekes said the coach of Clapham Bulls' basketball team had a token to turn on the lights and had gone there to practise on Saturday night for a tournament to come off yesterday. The tournament has since been postponed but the lights remained on.

"Bonnetts residents only play on these courts during the day. Once it gets dark, the youngsters have to stop because we have no access to the lights," said another resident, Ralph Miller.

Sidelined

"Bonnetts residents are being sidelined," Miller said. "We have a lot of youths out here ... and right now we don't even know where in Clapham the guy with access to the lights lives," he added.

Weekes said a further instance of "disrespect" was that no one from Bonnetts was asked to help organise the proposed basketball tournament, now slated for Saturday.

"None of our teams was notified but we're still trying to put together a team if the tournament comes off," said Weekes.

Saying they wanted the area's elected representative William Duguid to look into the matter, the residents, some of whom have been living there for over 20 years, also said the community centre seemed to be out of bounds.

"Children can't go into the community centre, we can't even play a game of dominoes, hearts or anything," Miller said, noting that churches, organisations and other entities held events there.

Democratic Labour Party candidate Taan Abed also expressed concern about the situation, saying "no one has any right to treat Bonnetts people differently. This is not fair".

However, Duguid said anyone from within the Bonnetts community could go to the National Sports Council and purchase tokens for the floodlights. He also said the tournament was not meant to sideline Bonnetts but to "tease out talent" from the area by having the event featuring teams from all across Christ Church West.

He also said he had sourced the coach from Clapham because of his organisational background in sports.

As for the community centre, Duguid said somehow these centres had gone out of the community's hands. "It's a national problem and the Government is working on it," he said. (RJ)

Story from: http://www.nationnews.com/story/322932276485632.php