Apr 24 - GSD: Chief Minister Is Misleading People On Football Stadium
The GSD has said that the Chief Minister “should stop misleading on the issue of the national football stadium.” The party says it also “welcomes loudly” the current plans announced to provide football facilities at its preferred site, the Victoria Stadium, and the general sport facilities at Europa Point and Lathbury Barracks.
A statement continued: “The Chief Minister’s attempts to defend his Government’s position by falsely claiming that GSD plans simply catered for football. In fact, it is obvious from a cursory look at the plans the GSD made public in 2015, that its suggested project was multi-use. The Chief Minister’s latest comments are therefore another smokescreen to hide that the Government is doing now, what it said for four years was impossible due to site constraints, namely build a national football stadium at Victoria Stadium.
“The Chief Minister needs to be reminded that, as early as May 2013, he was ruling out Victoria Stadium, saying that it was impossible to build a Cat 4 Stadium there because of site constraints. This was even before the GSD had published its own plans. By March 2014 he was telling Parliament that he was fully committed to a Stadium at Europa Point as the only viable site, and again reiterated that construction at Victoria Stadium was not possible, as it required the partial demolition of the Tercentenary Hall and that both the proximity of the runway and the impact on road infrastructure both caused the site to be ruled out not least due to size constraints.
“When public pressure forced him to backtrack on Europa Point, Lathbury Barracks became the new site, despite the Chief Minister having previously stated in Parliament that Lathbury was inadequate due to access and environmental issues, a national stadium at Lathbury was suddenly possible and became the agreed site by GFA, UEFA and the Government. All this shows poor judgement on the part of the Government and poor leadership on the part of the Chief Minister. He has made contradictory statement after contradictory statement simply to further the idea that was flavour of the month to him, rather than having taken a more considered view, which is the right and responsible way for any Government to act.
“Despite the lamentable loss of time that this has incurred and the litany of U-Turns by the Government, and despite the currently announced proposals not being a Government manifesto commitment, the GSD nevertheless has and continues to loudly welcome the proposals as being in the best interest of our community. The GSD now looks forward to and welcomes that the Government is finally doing what is right for football and sport generally. However, the GSD looks forward to understanding how disruption to sport generally will be managed during construction and the timely delivery of all projects prior to the Island Games in 2019.”
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