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Wednesday, July 23, 2025

Woodbrook residents to protest Socadrome

by

20140221

Wood­brook res­i­dents are plan­ning to protest the Na­tion­al Car­ni­val Com­mis­sion's (NCC) de­ci­sion to al­low four large Car­ni­val bands to pa­rade through their streets on Car­ni­val Tues­day, as well as the de­ci­sion to host the Kid­dies' Car­ni­val at Adam Smith Square to­mor­row.The route for the large bands will take mas­quer­aders through Wood­brook and to the So­cadrome at the Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um, Mu­cu­rapo.

On Tues­day, Wood­brook res­i­dents met with Port-of-Spain may­or Ray­mond Tim Kee in the hope that he could dis­suade the NCC from agree­ing to the So­cadrome pro­pos­al.They said Car­ni­val ac­tiv­i­ties should stay in Port-of-Spain and not be brought in­to their com­mu­ni­ty.Tim Kee, how­ev­er, told them it was not with­in his pow­er to do so and on Thurs­day, the NCC an­nounced that Harts, Tribe, Yu­ma and Bliss had been grant­ed ap­proval to pa­rade along an ex­tend­ed route through Wood­brook and to the sta­di­um.

In an in­ter­view yes­ter­day, pres­i­dent of the Wood­brook Res­i­dents As­so­ci­a­tion Lynette Dol­ly said res­i­dents were up­set by the de­ci­sions.She said: "Noth­ing has been or­gan­ised as yet and it is quite pos­si­ble there will be a protest."Why are they mov­ing it (Chil­dren's Car­ni­val) from down­town and the ma­jor­i­ty of peo­ple come from the east, and where are they go­ing to park? It (protest) could be pos­si­ble."

Coun­cil­lor for Wood­brook June Durham said res­i­dents were ob­ject­ing to the route be­cause it posed a health and safe­ty is­sue for them and in the case of the Kid­dies Car­ni­val, res­i­dents were con­cerned about ac­cess­ing their homes freely.She said: "We want to know if there is an emer­gency route. One of the res­i­dents just had surgery. It is more of a health and safe­ty sit­u­a­tion. That street will be tight­ly packed.

"When they come off the stage they are go­ing straight in­to some­body's res­i­dence. There is no area to line up. Where these chil­dren go­ing to line up? Is Adam Smith Square ready? No­body says how the health and safe­ty will be dealt with."She said res­i­dents were still com­pil­ing sig­na­tures for a pe­ti­tion against the So­cadrome ini­tia­tive."We are go­ing to have an emer­gency meet­ing to plan things. I hear the res­i­dents will protest but we have heard noth­ing yet. We have over 300 sig­na­tures on the pe­ti­tion (against the routes)."

MP joins cause

Join­ing the res­i­dents' cause yes­ter­day was Port-of-Spain South MP Mar­lene Mc Don­ald.In a me­dia re­lease, Mc­Don­ald said: "The ap­proval giv­en by the NCC to pa­rade along this ex­tend­ed route on Car­ni­val Tues­day with­out con­sul­ta­tion with the res­i­dents is an­oth­er slap in the face to the res­i­dents of Wood­brook." She said what made mat­ters worse was the fact that the bands re­port­ed­ly made the pro­pos­al since Jan­u­ary 30.

"No one sought to meet the res­i­dents to ex­plain the plan or seek to un­der­stand the im­pact such a plan could have on them."To make mat­ters worse, it now seems Gary Grif­fith, Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter, has by­passed the Port-of-Spain City Cor­po­ra­tion and Wood­brook res­i­dents to cater for a se­lect group of mas play­ers," Mc­Don­ald said.She said while she sup­port­ed moves to ease con­ges­tion for the mas­quer­aders, it could not be at the ex­pense of a res­i­den­tial com­mu­ni­ty.

She added: "Some years ago, J'Ou­vert cel­e­bra­tions were dis­con­tin­ued in St Clair af­ter com­plaints from the res­i­dents," she said."Wood­brook res­i­dents have a right to be af­front­ed by this lat­est in­cur­sion on their right to peace, qui­et and the en­joy­ment of their prop­er­ty. The use by the bands of the pro­posed route can be ex­pect­ed to leave a trail of noise, ve­hi­cle ex­haust, garbage and urine through the area."

She said the plan to de­ploy po­lice and sol­diers to en­sure the safe­ty and se­cu­ri­ty of mas­quer­aders, spec­ta­tors and res­i­dents was hard­ly com­fort­ing."The time is long past for a more proac­tive dis­cus­sion of the fu­ture di­rec­tion of this im­por­tant cul­tur­al fes­ti­val."The stag­ing of Car­ni­val can­not con­tin­ue to be an an­nu­al bac­cha­nal of re­ac­tive de­ci­sions for short-term im­pact that leave open­ings for so­lu­tions with­out con­sul­ta­tion by om­nipo­tent politi­cians.

"We need to look care­ful­ly at what might be all of the rea­sons these band­lead­ers have cho­sen to aban­don the heart of Port-of-Spain and de­prive the fam­i­lies who come from all over T&T to en­joy this free en­ter­tain­ment large­ly fa­cil­i­tat­ed by the State."So­cadrome's me­dia re­la­tions di­rec­tor Danielle Hunte said yes­ter­day that the four bands had pur­sued the ini­tia­tive be­cause of years of com­plaints from mas­quer­aders about hav­ing to wait hours to cross the Queen's Park Sa­van­nah stage due to con­ges­tion.

She said the main pur­pose of So­cadrome was to ease traf­fic con­ges­tion and al­so bring re­lief to the mas­quer­aders.


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